Valentino outside Christie's. Photo: Phyllis Tuchman

Fashion designer Valentino is something of a fixture at the contemporary art auctions, usually perched in the front row, bidding–but not overspending–on choice items.

At Sotheby’s May 11 contemporary art sale he went for a large riotous Cecily Brown canvas, but relented as the price soared. The painting sold for $1.1 million (est. $500,000-$700,000) to a phone bidder.

Critic Phyllis Tuchman snapped this photo of him outside Christie’s on Sunday during the auction previews and kindly shared it with Art Market Views.

Photo: via Bloomberg News

Link to Bloomberg News story here.

By Lindsay Pollock

May 12 (Bloomberg) — Marguerite Hoffman, a prominent Dallas art collector, filed suit this week against Mexican financier David Martinez for failing to keep her 2007 sale of a star Mark Rothko painting a secret. The suit stems from the painting’s public sale tonight at Sotheby’s, estimated to fetch as much as $25 million.

Three years ago, after her 59-year-old husband’s death, Hoffman sold the painting to an undisclosed buyer, with the proviso that the details of the sale remain a secret, according to her lawsuit, filed in a Dallas, Texas, district court.

Hoffman sold the Rothko in April 2007, just as the painting came off the walls at the Dallas Museum of Art where it had hung in an exhibition titled “Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art,” featuring promised gifts to the museum. Hoffman is a trustee at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Marguerite and her late husband Robert Hoffman were among three Dallas couples who in 2005 announced a pledge to donate their art collections to the Dallas Museum…

Peter Brant’s Jeff Koons’ sculpture, Balloon Dog (Orange) has departed pastoral Greenwich, Connecticut for Park Avenue. The reflective coppery-hued stainless steel pup is parked in the lobby of Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building at 375 Park Avenue, owned by real estate developer, collector and Brant pal Aby Rosen.

The Koons has been installed on Park Avenue for about a month. It is surrounded by a black velvet rope. The sleek Philip Johnson designed lobby is open to the public.

The Balloon Dog is among the most desirable pieces from the artist’s 1994-2000 Celebration series. Hedge fund manager Steve Cohen owns a yellow version, which was installed on the MET’s rooftop in 2008.  Eli Broad owns a blue one and Francois Pinault has the magenta version. It is worth upwards of $20 million.

Brant hasn’t commented on whether the Koons is on loan, or has changed hands, or is for sale. Brant’s recent financial woes have been chronicled here and here. Calls to 375 Park Avenue weren’t immediately returned.

Read my May 2009 Bloomberg News story on Brant and his museum here.

Harvey Shipley Miller lived in a Park Avenue townhouse, received up to $200,000 a year in salary and $100,000 in travel expenses as the sole trustee of the Judith Rothschild Foundation, according to an article in today’s New York Times, found here.

The list of perks goes on. Miller donated $130,000 in foundation funds to the University of California where he created a fellowship named after himself. At MoMA, a curator’s position was named after Miller, not Rothschild, in connection with a monster drawing collection donated in 2005.

One wonders why was Miller the foundation’s sole trustee, with no apparent oversight? Whomever advised wealthy painter Judith Rothschild to structure her foundation in that fashion obviously gave her bad advice.

The Times story does a great job laying out the tale, revealing how Miller’s control over the Rothschild foundation — which included millions plus 10 Mondrians and Brancusi’s Muse — landed  him board slots and committee seats at the MET, Whitney and MoMA. (The article doesn’t explain what happened to the artworks. Do they still belong to the foundation or has Miller been selling them off to fund…

A collection of contemporary basketry has gone on view at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design, courtesy of Arizona collectors Sara and David Lieberman. Intertwined: Contemporary Baskets from the Sara and David Lieberman Collection opened Monday night. Sara Lieberman, wearing a silver basket-like necklace, welcomed visitors to the Columbus Circle museum.

The Liebermans are parents of New York dealer Michael Lieberman of Harris Lieberman. The exhibition runs March 16 to September 12 and reveals the extraordinary creativity of the woven vessel. The works have been promised as gifts to the museum.

The exhibit includes 70 pieces, including a range of materials from straw to  fish skin. Artists in the collection include Ed Rossbach, Kiyomi Iwata, and Dorothy Gill Barnes.

Link to Bloomberg News story here.

By Lindsay Pollock

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) — Billionaire Michael Dell’s investment firm, MSD Capital LP, has acquired about 185,000 vintage photographic prints from the Magnum Photos agency in what is thought to be among the largest photo transactions in history.

While no price was disclosed, the collection has been insured for more than $100 million, according to a knowledgeable source who declined to be identified.

MSD Capital will lend the photos for five years to the Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin. Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of computer maker Dell Inc., which is based in Round Rock, Texas, is an Austin resident and University of Texas dropout.

“Having this incredible collection in Austin is especially exciting to me,” said Dell in a press statement. Forbes magazine estimated Dell’s net worth at $14.5 billion in 2009. MSD Capital manages more than $10 billion in assets, according to a press release.

Ransom is among the leading acquirers of research materials from the 19th and 20th…

The auction wars are heating up as Christie’s and Sotheby’s battle for an estimated $100 million to $150 million worth of artworks from the estate of Frances Lasker Brody, said to be up for grabs for the big ticket May New York auctions.

Brody, a Los Angeles based philanthropist who died in November 2009 at the age of 93, was patron of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Huntington Library. She was the daughter of Chicago advertising mogul Albert Lasker, and wife of real estate developer Sidney Brody.

She lived in a celebrated modernist house, adorned with a leafy 1953 ceramic 12-foot long Matisse tile mural, The Sheaf, expected to be donated to LACMA.

Dealers say it was long thought that some of the collection would be donated to LACMA. Sidney Brody was a former LACMA trustee, president and board chairman, whose 1983 memorial service was held at the museum according to a New York Times obituary.

A quick search of the museum’s collection database reveals not much by way of Brody gifts, aside from a…

Starting this month, The Magazine Antiques, has begun combining issues to save bucks. Antiques, published monthly since 1922, will produce 9 issues in 2010 instead of 12. The glossy magazine is part of Brant Art Media’s trio of publications.

“We will also bow to the necessity of the times in 2010 and reduce the frequency of our publication,” wrote Elizabeth Pochoda in her editor’s letter for the January/February combo issue.

Antiques, an unabashed cheerleader for the field, features well-researched articles on ceramics, folk art, furniture and other subjects. The current issue include articles on the relationship between modernist sculpture and folk art, a profile on textile dealer Titi Halle, and a story about little-known painter Edward Middleton Manigault.

Antiques, along with Interview and Art in America, are part of Brant Art Media, owned by collector Peter M. Brant. A recent New York Times article chronicled Brant’s financial pressures stemming from his pending divorce from model Stephanie Seymour and the weakening of the newsprint business. Brant is chairman and CEO of White Birch Paper Company which has missed interest payments, according to news reports.

Antiques subscription…

A new repository for information on American collectors, dealers and other market makers is now available courtesy of The Frick Collection’s Center for the History of Collecting in America, which has launched an online database.

The Archives Directory currently includes 1500 names, including information on Pop collectors Ethel and Robert Scull, financier David Rockefeller, Old Master merchants Duveen Brothers, and Eli Broad.

The site is an ongoing project, according to manager Samantha Deutch, who is preparing the next tranche of 1500 names.

Currently missing are many contemporary players, including the likes of Larry Gagosian, Beth Rudin DeWoody and Glenn Fuhrman.

Info can be contributed via the site. Link to that page here.

The Frick has also launched a database devoted to 17th Century Dutch art inventories, available here. A database of Spanish artists is forthcoming.

Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) continues its make-over, tapping three wealthy collectors for the board. The museum added seven other new trustees in 2009, in a wake of a financial mess that imperiled the museum’s future. Board members commit $75,000 in annual dues.

Longtime collector Peter M. Brant, chairman of art publisher Brant publications and White Birch Paper Company, recently founded The Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich, Connecticut, where art can be viewed by appointment. He produced art films Basquiat, Pollock and the 2006 PBS’s Andy Warhol: A Documentary.

Steven T. Mnuchin is chairman and CEO of OneWest Bank Group, formerly IndyMac, a Southern California bank with 33 branches and assets of $18 billion. He is also chairman and co-chief executive officer of Dune Capital Management. He is the son of art dealer Robert Mnuchin, and like his Dad, previously worked at Goldman Sachs.

Victor Pinchuk is a Ukrainian collector and founder of the PinchukArtCenter which recently exhibited over 100 works by Damien Hirst. He launched the Future Generation Art Prize in New York last week.…