Please note that Art Market Views is going on vacation (finally) and will resume posting on Sept. 9 (hopefully). Thanks for your loyal readership, tips and good cheer. Ciao for now!

I leave you with a quickie round-up of stories posted in the past two days:

Touring the Neuberger Booty at Sotheby’s on a Summer Afternoon LINK HERE

Ovation Ramps up Arts Programming LINK HERE

A Visit to the Berkshires Frelinghuysen Morris House LINK HERE

Frederic Church Mingles with Diego Rivera at ‘Nueva York’ LINK HERE

Larry Gagosian Loans Art Collection to Abu Dhabi LINK HERE

$150 Andy Warhol Inspired Dom Perignon LINK HERE

Bon Voyage Christie’s Alexandre Carel LINK HERE

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

A ramble around Sotheby’s sixth floor exhibition space on a sleepy August afternoon showed no signs of the cataclysmic economic upheaval which forced works by John Currin, Julie Mehretu and Yoshitomo Nara — all formerly part of the Neuberger Berman collection — onto the auction block.

The once prosperous investment bank Lehman Brothers acquired money management company Neuberger Berman in 2003. Bonus: a stellar art collection worth more than $10 million. The collection has been on view at Sotheby’s York Avenue headquarters over the summer.

The Sept. 25 auction includes 147 contemporary artworks, with sale proceeds going to Lehman creditors.

Highlights include John Baldessari’s Stares (with Lamps),  a black and white collage of austere headshots and white silhouettes framed by floor lamps illuminated in blue and yellow. Tagged $350,000 – $450,000, the piece was acquired at Sotheby’s in 1991 for $29,700 (nice return!)  With the opening of the Baldessari retrospective this month in Los Angeles and in October at the Met, the piece is money in the bank.

A middle-aged woman with a sassy stance and deadpan expression stars in John Currin’s 1991 portrait, Shakespeare Actress.  Demure compared to the topless Bea Arthur, painted around the same time, it is expected to fetch from $500,000 – $700,000. A familiar muted depiction of an atypical subject matter for Currin, a pair of red-and-white striped athletic sneakers, is also up for sale. “Sneaker” 1990 is  estimated at $60,000 – $80,0000.

The Lehman’s bankruptcy was announced the morning of the landmark Damien Hirst sale, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, held at Sotheby’s London in September 2008 and grossing $172 million. Hirst’s consumerist tribute to vulnerability and unexpected demise, We’ve Got Style (The Vessel Collection – Blue/Green) is on the auction block in September and expected to fetch between $800,000 to $1.2 million.

Here at Art Market Views, we noticed a number of other ironies. A 2001 work by Trenton Doyle Hancock is dubbed, The Life and Death of No 1. (Ok, Lehman was the fourth largest investment bank, but you catch our drift). Takashi Murakami’s Chaos (1999) adequately sums up the stock market gyrations, while Wang Jianwei’s print is aptly titled Dilemma. Even Robert Rauschenberg’s 1991 acrylic and aluminum work is given a fitting moniker – Bank.

Christie’s will auction 300 lots from the Lehman collection on September 29th in London.

Julie Mehretu's 2001 "Untitled 1," est. $600-$800,000, on view at Sotheby's. Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Neo Rauch's 1999 "Einbruch" est. $400,000 - $600,000, on view at Sotheby's. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Do-Ho Suh 1992-2001 "Metal Jacket" est. $300,000-$400,000, on view at Sotheby's. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

On left: Yoshitomo Nara "The Little Pilgrims (Night Walking)" est. $150,000-$200,000, on view at Sotheby's. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Marc Grotjahn 2000 "Untitled (Three-tiered Perspective)" est. $600,000-$800,000, on view at Sotheby's. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Ovation, the artsy TV network, premieres the first of a two week series of shows dissecting the cash and crimes of the art world.

The not so subtly titled series MONEY MONEY MONEY examines the relationship between money and fine art.

The Mona Lisa Curse, an expose by Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes,  reveals Hughes’ theory that the world’s most famous painting came to influence the over-commercialization of art.

In Oligart British writer and broadcaster Marcel Theroux considers the growing presence of wealthy Russians in the London art market. Profiling the fraternizing circles of these collectors, the documentary offers an inside look at their impact on the contemporary art market.

On a less serious side, the series Art Race follows two artists as they use only their artwork to fund a 40 day race across the country. Painter Kenny Harris hitchhikes and sells classical pet portraiture to get the funds to try to beat out sculptor Ben Sargent, as he bargains with potential nude models for a buck. The competition airs each night this week at 8 PM.

Next week, Ovation profiles the most famous art felonies in It’s a Crime. The greatest schemes and most successful art robberies are the subject of the three-part series Art of the Heist. The Artful Codgers portrays the forgery scheme led by crafty senior citizens creating masterpiece mockeries in their backyard. Stolen features the saga behind the notorious theft of Vermeer’s The Concert from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston. The missing painting is one of only 35 of Vermeer’s surviving works.

One of the summer’s high points was a visit to the Frelinghuysen Morris House and Studio in Lenox, Massachusetts, a Bauhaus-inspired 1930s-40s time capsule preserving the bohemian upper-crust summer retreat of abstract painters, and wife and husband, Suzy Frelinghuysen and George L.K. Morris.

Kinney Freylinghuysen, the foundation’s director and Suzy’s nephew, guided us through the  house, filled with a dazzling array of artworks, personal artifacts and period furnishings by designers including Donald Deskey and Paul Frankl.

Later in the summer, I saw Kinney Freylinghuysen at Larry Salander’s sentencing. The dealer had robbed the estate of several million dollars.

To read more about Morris and Freylinghuysen, go here. Photos from my visit follow below.

Facade of white-washed 1930-1941 Bauhaus-inspired house and studio, with Morris mural. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Entrance hall with Morris' circa 1936 aluminum sculpture "Configuration," and Morris' circa 1941 mural. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Morris mural on staircase. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Living room with Morris marble bas-relief over fireplace with Morris fresco murals flanking fireplace, circa 1942. Leger drawing on left wall. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Close up of Morris living room mural, inset with reverse painted glass. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Frelinghuysen mural in dining room, circa 1942. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Frelinghuysen dining room fresco mural with pleated brass sheeting, circa 1942. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Picasso's "Dinard" oil on canvas, part of Foundation's collection. © Photo: Lindsay pollock

Kinney Frelinghuysen holding photo of his tirara-clad Aunt Suzy being presented at London's Court of St. James. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

In Morris' bedroom, the painter's own circa 1950 painting and tennis trophies. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

A 1933 Morris mural over the artist's bed, titled "The Battle of Indians." © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Corner of Morris' studio with two of his 1930s paintings on easel. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Artwork in Morris' studio, including, on left Juan Gris' 1917 "Still Life with Guitar," and Fernand Leger's 1920 "Composition." © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

View of Morris studio with Lachaise bust on first floor and David Smith sculpture on second floor. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Morris collage incorporating found images of Chinese pottery, circa 1930s. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

1936 Marble bust depicting Morris, by his friend Gaston Lachaise. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Morris' paints, brushes in his studio. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Circa 1938 David Smith sculpture, the first sale he made to a private collector. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Kinney Frelinghuysen standing in staircase with Morris mural. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Grounds of 64 acre Lenox estate of painters Morris and Frelinghuysen. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

The New-York Historical Society and El Museo del Barrio unite to present a joint history lesson this fall.

Nueva York (1613-1945) examines New York’s long term romance with Spain and Latin America, and how those countries have helped shape Manhattan’s cultural character.

Combining the resources of New York’s oldest museum and its leading Latino cultural institution, the show highlights three centuries of history.

Using interactive displays, listening stations, video and over two hundred rare and historic maps, letters, and drawings, the exhibition spans from the founding of New Amsterdam in the 1600s as a bastion against the Spanish empire, to the present day.

Works by New York artists and writers influenced by travels to Spain and South America such as Washington Irving, Frederic Church and William Merritt Chase will be on display.  Reflections of New York in paintings by modern Latin American artists including Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and Joaquin Torres-Garcia, are also featured.

Documentary filmmaker Ric Burns, best known for his eight-part PBS series New York: A Documentary Film, has created a film for the exhibition, to be shown in the museum’s theater.

Nueva York (1613 – 1945) will be on view from September 17, 2010, through January 9, 2011, at El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue (at 104th Street).

Art dealer Larry Gagosian is doing all he can to bond with the Abu Dhabi power brokers. Last year he participated in a panel during the oil-rich country’s new Abu Dhabi Art Fair. (I attended the panel and blogged about it here.)

This year Gagosian is shipping his art collection to Abu Dhabi for a first-time public viewing. The show, RSTW (an acronym for its all male roster — Rauschenberg, Ruscha, Serra, Twombly, Warhol and Wool)  runs Sept. 22 to Jan. 24 and will be curated by Anne Baldassari, president of the Fondation Picasso. The show is being presented under the auspices of the country’s top honcho:  HH Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

The venue is a temporary exhibition space called the Manarat Al Saadiyat which last year displayed a group of Middle Eastern artwork. The building is located on Saadiyat Island, where new Louvre and Guggenheim museums are under construction,  along with thousands of luxury condos.

Works in the show include Rauschenberg’s 1963 Overdrive, Serra’s 1984 Malmo Roll, Warhol’s 1960 Brillo Soap Pads and 1972 Mao.

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Forget about the measly soup can. Andy Warhol’s Pop aesthetic is being used to hawk bottles  of Dom Perignon in a promotional gambit done with the Warhol Foundation.

The champagne wizards commissioned the folks at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art & Design’s Design Lab to reinterpret its bottle with a Warholian twist.

Dom Perignon claims Andy was a big fan of their pricey bubbles and favored it as his beverage of choice at Studio 54.

The Warholesque bottles are vintage 2002 champagne, and will come in three hues – red, blue and yellow.

Each bottle is $150 and will be available for sale beginning October 15th at wine retailers nationwide.

Click here to watch a promo video.

After two years in New York, Christie’s Alexandre Carel will return to Paris as a postwar and contemporary specialist.

The French-born Carel  joined the department in Paris in 2006, and was promoted to the New York office in 2008. He was instrumental in organizing the First Open sales, and helped obtain consignments including Tamara de Lempicka’s Portrait de Madame M which achieved a world record price at $6,130,500, and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Mater which sold for $5,850,500.

Carel  holds a B.A. in Finance and Strategy from the Institut d’Etude Politique in Paris. Carel will work with Laetitia Baudouin, head of sales, and Christophe Durand-Ruel, senior specialist (and heir to the famed French art dealing family) and other members of the team.

Here’s a recap of Art Market Views top stories from last week:

Art in America Magazine Wants to Take You to Brazil LINK HERE

Kraushaar Galleries Turns 125, is New York’s Forth Oldest Art Merchant LINK HERE

Sotheby’s Offers Course for Aspiring Art Moguls LINK HERE

More Details Emerge about Futuristic On-line VIP Art Fair LINK HERE

Sotheby’s Launches New Russian Sale in New York LINK HERE

MoMA Curator Temkin Mingles Rothko and Pollock with Lesser Known Names LINK HERE

Al Miner Bolster’s MFA Boston’s Contemporary Team LINK HERE

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Our bikini, sun block and Portuguese-English dictionary are packed.

Art in America magazine has joined forces with art travel company Pinacoteca to create a deluxe tour of Brazil’s booming contemporary art scene. Coinciding with the 29th Sao Paulo Biennial, the trip takes place from Sept. 19-26. Brazil 2010 includes access to the fair, guided museum tours, trips to private collections and artists’ studios.

First stop is the Sao Paulo Art Biennial. Featuring more than 30,000 square meters of exhibition space, the Biennial hosts national presentations as well international exhibitions held under the direction of selected curators.

Heading to the coast, a behind-the-scenes tour of Niterói Contemporary Art Museum is the highlight of the trip to Rio De Janeiro, along with visits to the Brazilian tourist spots like Sugarloaf Mountain and Ipanema Beach.

Destinations along the way include major contemporary galleries – A Gentil Carioca, Andre Millan, Manoel Macedo and others. Studio visits include Sandra Cinto, Jeanete Musatti and Laura Vinci.

The trip concludes with a one-day visit to much touted Instituto Cultural Inhotim in Belo Horizonte, an open-air contemporary art museum inside a 3,000-plus-acre botanical garden.

Pinacoteca specializes in vacations for the “cosmopolitan culture seeker.” Former Christie’s Latin American Paintings Department specialist Anna di Stasi founded the company in 2007.

The trip costs $5,500, exclusive of hotels and international airfare.