Unique ESU Cabinet Charles and Ray Eames, circa 1950s est $25,000 - $35,000. Image Courtesy Sotheby's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views, Contributor

Noted mid-century dealer Mark McDonald is selling a stash of American, Scandinavian and Italian design, tagged $5,000 to $30,000, at a single owner Sotheby’s sale on March 10th.

Objects by Isamu Noguchi, Charles and Ray Eames and Ettore Sottsass are among the offerings.

McDonald made a name over the past forty years at the helm of a string of design galleries, including the pioneering Fifty/50 and Gansevoort Gallery in Manhattan.  McDonald currently operates a gallery in bucolic Hudson, New York.

He is credited with having helped revive the market for mid-century furniture and industrial design. (A 2002 New York Times article, found here,  dubbed him “Mr. Modernism” and a “walking, talking 20th-century-design database.”)

Sotheby’s previously sold works from McDonald’s collection in 1993. In March  McDonald is unloading more of his design stock to focus on his role as an advisor for studio jewelry collectors.

Sotheby’s upcoming sale, titled What Modern Is: The Collection of Mark McDonald , features  a Charles and Ray Eames’s Unique ESU Cabinet, estimated to sell for $25,000 – $35,000.

A selection of Scandinavian…

Fernando Botero's 1972 "Nuestra Senora de Cajica" (est. $600-$800K) sold for $872,500 to a North American private collector at Sotheby's. Photo: Courtesy Sotheby's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

A third of Sotheby’s 65-lot Latin American art auction failed to sell last night, but there was plenty of spending power for certain works. Eight auction records were established.

“There are definitely chunks of money out there for very good things,” New York dealer Mary-Anne Martin said in an interview with Art Market Views.

The sale tallied $14.8 million, chump change compared with last week’s $222.4 million contemporary art auction at Sotheby’s, but quite respectable for a market with minimal cross-over from non-Latin buyers. The total skimmed the sale’s $14.5 million low presale estimate. The tally was down from $15.9 million a year ago.

A group of works were consigned by Aspen-based collectors, whom dealers say were slammed by Madoff-associated losses. They sold Wifredo Lam’s eight-foot wide 1970 voodoo-inspired painting which made an auction record $2.2 million. (Sotheby’s had sold work for the same collectors in May and a third tranche is still to be sold).

The high rate of casualties contributed to a tense mood in the salesroom. Several pricey lots, including an important Leonora Carrington, tagged $500,000 to $700,000, failed to…

Wifredo Lam's 1970 "Les Abalochas Dansent Pour Dhambala, dieu l’unité," est. $1.75M-$2.25M at Sotheby's. Photo: Courtesy Sotheby's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Christie’s and Sotheby’s Latin American art sales this week are slated to tally over $50 million. There is the usual array of Botero fatties (19 in the evening sales!), plus rare Surrealist canvases, Colonial portraiture and kinetic and other optical teasers from the 1960s and 1970s. Sales rev up tonight at Sotheby’s.

New York’s Latin American auction revenues have increased over the past five years. Sotheby’s day and evening sales are projected to total up to $27 million for 261 lots, up from $15.5 million in Nov. 2005. Christie’s may see as much as $26 million realized from sales in the coming days, up from $11.5 million total in 2005.

The action commences tonight at Sotheby’s, with a collection of works from an Aspen collector, tagged to sell for up to $3.8 million.

The sale’s projected priciest work is Cuban Surrealist Wifredo Lam’s jumpy Las Abalochas dansent pour Dhambala, Dieu de L’Unite (1970), tagged to fetch $1.75 million to $2.25 million, which if achieved, would set a new auction record for the artist. (Lam’s current auction record – $1.4 million for…

Willem de Kooning's 1958 "Composition III, " oil on paper on masonite, (Est. $600-800K) Sold for $986,000 at Sotheby's. © Photo: Sotheby's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

The week’s trio of contemporary art day sales totaled $128 million.

Tuesday’s sale at Phillips de Pury & Co. was no Carte Blanche Philippe Segalot affair, instead totaling $6.1 million, under the $7.1 million to $10.1 million estimate.

More revealing: just 64 percent of the 354 lots were sold. The sale was larger than a year ago, when 263 lots which fetched $4.8 million.

Phillips set auction records for seven artists – though for some artists, like the charismatic Work of Art champ Abdi Farah, the record marks their first time at auction.

Sotheby’s came next, tallying $48.9 million, with eighty percent of 344 lots finding buyers, within the pre-sale $40 million to $57 million projected total. This was in line with 2009 results which made $44.1 million.

The top lot belonged to AbEx standby, Willem de Kooning: his 1958 Composition III fetched $986,500, above the $600,000 to $800,000 estimate.

Christie’s consignments were led by a spattering of estates offerings, including works from the collections of Max Palevsky and Dennis Hopper. A combined 391 lots sold in the morning and afternoon…

Tobias Meyer with Warhol Coke bottle at Sotheby's press preview. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Bloomberg story here.

Andy Warhol’s painting of a Coca- Cola bottle sold for $35.4 million at Sotheby’s yesterday, making the artist the star of New York’s contemporary art auctions for two nights running as the market recovers slowly from a slump.

While eight bidders vied for the 7-foot-tall Warhol, they failed to reproduce the drama at rival Phillips de Pury & Co. a day earlier, when another 1962 Warhol, of actress Elizabeth Taylor, sold for $63 million.

“It was not frothy,” said dealer Harry Blain after the $222.5 million sale, the largest in the category since May 2008. “It was good, solid, considered buying, nothing outlandish.”

Author James Frey, fashion designer Valentino Garavani and Michael Dell’s money manager, Glenn Fuhrman, were at the front of the saleroom as 91 percent of the 54 lots found buyers. Five artist auction records were set, including Julie Mehretu and Larry Rivers, helping the total rise just above the $214.5 million presale high estimate, which does not include commissions.

A year ago, Sotheby’s contemporary sale tallied $134 million. “It was incredibly strong considering that we are…

Sotheby's Tobias Meyer with Warhol Coke bottle, (est. $20M-$25M). © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

The fall auction previews opened last week at  Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Warhol was ubiquitous. Early browsers included dealer Nicholas Acquavella, art banker Andy Augenblick, collector Ellen Stern and Yale University Art Gallery director Jock Reynolds.

The Impressionist and modern sales pivoted on a few choice works.  At Sotheby’s, the biggest catch was Amedeo Modigliani’s 1917 painting, Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Roman Woman). The sensuous nude perches, legs crossed, on a plush red settee. She is flush in all the right places. The work set an auction record for Modigliani the last time it was up for auction in 1999, selling for $16.7 million. This time around it made $69 million.

Over at Christie’s…The four clear cut  standouts came from Henry Kravis–including Juan Gris’s 1913 Cubist, Violon et guitare.

This week contemporary art sells.

Collector Steve Wynn is dispensing with his 1964 Lichtenstein comic classic Ohhh…Alright... at Christie’s contemporary sale. Christie’s nabbed a string of estates, including Dennis Hopper, Robert Shapazian and Max Palevsky.

The contemporary sections burst with Pop. Examples of Abstract Expressionism are…

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema's "The Finding of Moses" sold for $35.9 million. Photo: Courtesy Sotheby's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Following an eight minute bidding battle, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s cinematic The Finding of Moses sold for a record-setting $35.9 million this afternoon at Sotheby’s. The estimate was $3 million to $5 million. The anonymous buyer bid by phone.

The painting once belonged to Allen Funt, creator of the popular prank show Candid Camera. His collection of works by Alma-Tadema were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1973, according to Sotheby’s.

The price paid for the large-scale depiction of the rescue of young Moses (the baby tucked in a basket) by the movie-star gorgeous Pharaoh’s daughter is a new benchmark for the 19th century classicist. Alma-Tadema’s previous auction record was set by the same canvas when it sold in 1995 for $2.8 million. The artist took two years to complete the work.

The painting sold during Sotheby’s 19th century European sale which tallied $61.5 million, with 73% of the 82 lots finding buyers.

Italian portrait painter Giovanni Boldini achieved an auction record as well. His Portrait of Giovinetta Errazuriz sold for $6.8 million, nearly four times its high estimate of…

Greene and Greene desk and chair, selling at Sotheby's on Dec. 16, est. $4 million. Photo: Courtesy Sotheby's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

A Standard Oil heir’s Greene & Greene wooden desk and chair, slated to fetch around $4 million, headlines Sotheby’s Important 20th Century Design sale on Dec. 16.

The Asian-influenced desk and chair hail from Pratt House, also known as Casa Barranca after the river that runs through the property, the final structure in architects Charles and Henry Greene’s five-part Ultimate Bungalow series.

The 4,300 square foot Southern California home was designed in 1909 as a winter home for Charles M. Pratt, according to Sotheby’s.  Pratt’s father was a co-founder of Standard Oil. The desk was custom-designed for the living room by cabinet maker Peter Hall.

The desk features hand-carved inlays of a gnarled oak tree in the bas-relief, a design is inspired by the Ojai valley landscape. The drawer pulls are accented with silver.

The desk sold previously at Christie’s in 1985 for $220,000, according to Artnet, an auction record for Greene & Greene which held for nearly 15 years. That sale was criticized by architectural preservationists, who believed the disassembling of the house’s furniture compromised the integrity of…

Picasso's 1921 so-called "Homme et Femme," which sold at Sotheby's on Nov. 2 for $5.3 million.

Evidently two pairs of breasts weren’t a dead give away.

Sotheby’s sold Picasso’s 1921 pastel semi-cubist drawing of two figures titled Homme et Femme last night for $5.3 million. The catalog declares the work was completed soon after the birth of Picasso’s first son when all was harmonious with wife Olga.

A cataloguer writes: “The present work is a rare instance of Picasso returning his focus to the male-female couple in this intense period of familial redefinition.”

Not so fast, according to art critic and scholar Phyllis Tuchman, who suspects that the work is actually two seated women, not a man and a women.

For one thing there is matter of dome-like breasts on both figures. Next, both appear to have flowing coiffures.

Tuchman also explained there is a related, fairly famous 1920 painting at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Dusseldorf of two female nudes.

Tuchman says the title, Homme et Femme,  probably dates to 1951 when Christian Zervos wrote the catalog raisonne, working from a black and white reproduction, which may have obscured the work-or at least the breasts.

Sotheby’s, evidently clued in to Picasso’s renderings of female pairs in…

Record setting Modigliani nude

Link to Bloomberg story here.

An Amedeo Modigliani 1917 nude sold for $68.96 million, a record for the artist, helping Sotheby’s reach its highest total for a New York Impressionist and modern art sale since May 2008.

The auction tallied $227.6 million with commissions, below Sotheby’s top estimate of $266 million, which doesn’t include the buyers’ premiums. That reflected a sober mood in the room brimming with cautious dealers and collectors. A quarter of the offerings failed to sell, including works by Francis Picabia, Joan Miro and Henri Matisse.

“The sale was strong in areas, and weak where it should be,” said London dealer Alan Hobart of Pyms Gallery, who bought Henri Matisse’s bronze Deux Negresses, for $8.5 million on behalf of a client.

Modigliani’s Nu Assis sur un Divan (La Belle Romaine) was offered early in the 61-lot sale, the first of the two-week New York autumn season. Five phone bidders vied for the work, described in the catalog as a “post-coital rendering.”

“It really set a benchmark,” said dealer David Nash of Mitchell-Innes & Nash. The artist’s previous record was…