Among my personal favorites were small abstract graphite landscapes by Roland Flexner, temptingly tagged $6,000 apiece at D’Emilio Terras. Flexner also has a wall of pseudo-Surrealistic works at the Whitney Biennial. Of course I forgot to take a photo of them but the artist’s website has plenty of visuals.

Here are a few photos from show floor at the Park Avenue Armory.

Nancy Spero at Galerie Lelong "Sheela Na Gig at Home"

Shirley Jaffe at Tibor de Nagy

Marsden Hartley at Menconi and Schoelkopf

Saint Gauden's "Pilgrim" at Conner Rosenkranz

Sotheby's CEO William Ruprecht, via UVM

Bloomberg’s Philip Boroff has dug into Sotheby’s SEC filings, reporting that that CEO William Ruprecht’s voluntary $100,000 pay cut has been restored. Read Boroff’s story on Bloomberg here.

Ruprecht took a pay cut in May 2009 on the heels of plunging auction revenues, according to Boroff. His salary has been restored to $700,000, plus other benefits.

The CEO’s pay rose following a period of drastic cost cuts which helped Sotheby’s post a $73.6 million profit in the fourth quarter of 2009. The company fired twenty percent of employees and mostly eliminated the use of guarantees to win consignments.

Ruprecht earned $6.4 million in total compensation in 2008, according to Boroff. In 2007, as the art market was peaking, he was awarded $10.3 million in salary, perks and benefits, according to Boroff.

Sotheby’s shares have risen 40 percent this year, says Boroff.

Bronze African 'Walking Man' and 'Walking Woman' figures

A reader sent me this jpeg depicting a pair of West African bronze statues he had acquired and was re-considering in the wake of Sotheby’s sale of Alberto Giacometti’s $104.3 million Walking Man I. (Read more on that sale here.)

Alberto Giacometti with a `Walking Man,' photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson

The collector tells me his African statues are over 100 years old and hail from Mali. They do bear an uncanny resemblance to Giacometti’s 1960 attenuated figure.

Bernard Goldberg at home with a favorite Guy Pene du Bois painting

Link to Bloomberg story here.

By Lindsay Pollock

March 4 (Bloomberg) — New York art dealer Bernard Goldberg, 77, reckoned the time had come for a graceful and reasonably lucrative exit from the business.

After 12 years of dealing in high-end American art, Goldberg will close his Madison Avenue gallery and sell its entire inventory of 175 artworks and furnishings at New York auctions hosted by Christie’s International this year. The sale is estimated to fetch as much as $10 million.

Goldberg says his latest move is prompted by his age, not art-market volatility.

“Right now, I feel the art market is getting better and better,” said Goldberg in an interview last week in his Fifth Avenue apartment. “This is a good time to sell.”

With the art market still shaky, Goldberg won’t be scoring the sort of coup he did in 1998, when he pulled out of the property market to cash in on high prices. He says he sold his five Manhattan boutique hotels to Credit Suisse First Boston for $139 million.

Christie’s and rival Sotheby’s, which together control more than two-thirds of the art auction market, said the global credit crisis triggered by Lehman Brother Holdings Inc.’s Sept. 2008 collapse caused sales last year to fall by a fifth. Christie’s Chief Executive Edward Dolman said he expects the market to rebound this year.

Born in the Bronx to an accountant father, Goldberg went to the private Horace Mann high school and later became a lawyer. Like many dealers, Goldberg entered the art business as a collector. He and his late wife, Monica Dennis Goldberg, bought a somber George Bellows in 1968 using $4,000 they had received as wedding gifts. The year he sold his New York properties, he opened his Upper East Side gallery and began selling early 20th- century American art.

Six Auctions

Goldberg’s works will be offered in six separate auctions during Christie’s spring and fall sales. Goldberg, who has two daughters and funds a program in Israel to train women as advocates in rabbinical courts, didn’t say how he will spend the sales proceeds.

Among Christie’s projected top lots is a 2-foot-tall graceful Jacques Lipchitz 1914 cubist “Spanish Dancer” sculpture, expected to fetch between $400,000 and $600,000. Goldberg had been retailing the bronze for $850,000 at the gallery. “Is it going to bother me if it sells for $400,000? Absolutely.” said Goldberg. “There are things I paid top dollar for and will not get those prices today.”

Goldberg’s landscape of Central Park by American Impressionist Frederick Carl Frieseke will be sold Sept. 28. Goldberg paid $40,000. Christie’s estimate: $15,000 to $25,000.

Goldberg is best known for selling American art dating from 1900 to 1950, and these works span a range of styles, from Ashcan to Modernism. The auctions will include everything in his gallery, even those Goldberg says he’s tempted to keep.

Parting With Hartley

“How can I bear to part with the Hartley?” he said of a 1935-1936 red Marsden Hartley canvas, “Roses for Seagulls that Lost Their Way,” that’s expected to fetch $500,000. Edward Steichen’s atmospheric 1907 “Moonlit Landscape” will also be offered for a top estimate of $500,000. A group of early 20th- century decorative arts are also up for grabs, including an architectural 1904 Gustav Stickley chandelier, estimated to sell for as much as $80,000. The auctions include 70 American paintings and sculptures, to be offered May 20.

“We were able to take the best of the property — everything that he had to offer,” said Eric Widing, head of Christie’s American painting department. “He is making a grand bow before he exits the dealer stage.”

His personal collection isn’t for sale and will continue to adorn the walls of his Fifth Avenue apartment and East Hampton home. An early Edward Hopper portrait above the bed will stay. And his wedding gift, the Bellows, will remain in the living room.

Nick Cave Sound Suits at Armory Show

Link to Bloomberg story here.

By Lindsay Pollock and Katya Kazakina

March 4 (Bloomberg) — Wealthy and determined art collectors stormed David Kordansky’s booth yesterday afternoon during the opening hours of New York’s Armory Show.

The slender Los Angeles dealer held off a stampede of would-be buyers at the art fair, at one point calling out, politely but firmly, “Just let me get a handle on what has sold!”

The objects of desire: colorful geometric paintings by artist Will Fowler, tagged at $6,800-$7,000 a piece. Kordansky moved 13 of them in under two hours.

“I am super happy,” Kordansky said.

MoMA trustee David Teiger said he had snagged three of them.

Other relatively wallet-friendly offerings included $4,000 Polaroid photos by Philip-Lorca diCorcia at David Zwirner’s stand. The gallery sold 30 of 100 on display in the opening hours. At a higher price point, Paul Kasmin Gallery sold three paintings, priced around $85,000, by James Nares. The large canvases featured abstracted brushstrokes and hovered somewhere between painting and photography in sensibility.

The 12th annual Armory Show brings together 289 international dealers through March 7 on Manhattan’s West Side piers, hoping to shore up what has been a rocky period for art sales.

While few dealers enjoyed Kordansky’s feeding frenzy, the fair was livelier than 2009.

Art Lives!

“Last year the economy was in a freefall. Last year it was sheer fear,” said Christopher Kennedy, president of MMPI, the trade-show group that owns the fair. “People now realize that even if things don’t change, they can live and live with art.”

Kennedy said the organizers had received twice the number of pre-fair requests for VIP tickets than in the previous year – - a sign that collectors weren’t willing to skip the New York fair circuit this year.

The Armory Show is the week’s main event, along with a flurry of other fairs, museum shows and parties helping to lure collectors to the city.

The smaller but top quality Art Dealers Association of America fair, The Art Show, runs at the Park Avenue Armory until March 7. Tuesday night’s opening attracted big bucks collectors, including CIT Chairman and CEO John Thain and MoMA board president Marie-Josee Kravis. Show highlights include a two- artist hanging at Galerie St. Etienne of delicate drawings by Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele.

Withering Glares

Back at the Armory Show, the fair is large enough to embrace the experimental and quirky. A mime hired by performance artist Julien Bismuth slunk around an empty booth, delivering withering glares at empty nails where no art hung. An authenticated DVD of the piece was for sale for $7,000 through Austrian gallery Layr Wuestenhagen.

Nearby, artist Reed Seifer, wearing a bright red apron, spritzed a crisp, clear scent dubbed “Forget” into the air. Seifer hawked plastic bottles of his “Spray to Forget” perfume, available in an edition of 500. They were $25 and promised to “edit one’s consciousness” and remove “undesired memories” — the perfect elixir for an art collector in the mood to shop.

Sergey Skaterschikov, photo: Skate's

The six-year old art research firm Skate’s, led by Sergey Skaterschikov, has formed an alliance with Brant Art Media. Brant takes a 40% equity stake in Skate’s, according to a press release. Art in America, one of Brant’s publications, will have a “long term strategic marketing and services” relationship with Skate’s. The arrangement gives Skate’s a wider platform for distribution of its research.

“We need to bring our information and analytics to a wide audience,” Skaterschikov said in a statement.

Skate’s has published an Art Investment Handbook, originally targeting Russian collectors. The company also produces other reports. The company will move into the Brant Art Media offices in Soho.

Brant’s White Birch Paper Co.  filed for bankruptcy Feb. 24. Read more on that here.

Brant

Sotheby’s Board of Directors have finally recruited some younger blood, nominating 37-year old James Murdoch to run for a spot during the firm’s annual shareholder meeting on May 6.

Murdoch is chairman and chief executive for Europe and Asia of his billionaire father’s News Corporation, and heir apparent to run the global media company. He’s even got a quasi-racy back story: a Harvard drop-out, who ran a hip-hop company before joining the family fold. Read more on Murdoch here.

Sotheby’s current male dominated board includes: Michael Sovern, the Duke of Devonshire, William Ruprecht, Robin Woodhead, John Angelo, Lord Michael Blakenham, Allen Questrom, Don Stewart, Robert Taubman, Dennis Weibling–and Diana Taylor.

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in their Paris apartment, 1923

Dear Readers,

Pardon the friendly plug.

I am moderating two panels this week in conjunction with the  Armory Show.

Please come.

Saturday, March 6 @ 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Location: The Armory Show, Open Forum Lounge, Pier 92

The Upside to the Downside: Young Collectors in the Global Market

Hosted by the Association of Professional Art Advisers (APAA), the panel focuses on opportunities for collectors.

Panelists:

Joshua Adler, collector

Jen Bekman, dealer

Sharon Coplan Hurowitz, adviser

Thomas Solomon, dealer

Sunday, March 7 @ 3 p.m. – 4 p.m.

Location: Volta, Club 7W Talks Lounge, 7th Floor

Framing Art in the 21 st Century

Presented by No Longer Empty, this panel addresses the impact of new technologies on visual art and its dissemination, sales and exhibition. How will arts organizations find alternative ways to reach new publics?

Panelists:

Holly Block, Director Bronx Museum for the Arts

Amy Cappellazzo, International Co-Head Contemporary Art, Christie’s

Sara Reisman, Director, Percent for Art

Dan Cameron, Curator, Prospect New Orleans

Nato Thompson, Chief Curator Creative Time

Manon Slome, Founder and Curator No Longer Empty

William Wegman "About Four Thirty" and "The Architect, photo: 20 x 200

Art fairs aren’t the only way to move quantities of art.

Dealer and technology impresario Jen Bekman, whose 20 x 200 website markets affordable prints, sold over $100,000 worth of work by William Wegman on Feb. 3. Today she sold 220 prints by artist William Powhida–in two hours.

Bekman has recently begun collaborating with more established artists on her virtual gallery. The website, founded in 2007, is best known for marketing images by young and mid-career names. (Bekman also runs a bricks and mortar gallery on Spring Street, founded in 2003.)

The Wegman project was a clearcut hit. The artist offered a pair of photos: About Four Thirty, a portrait of a graceful Weimaraner balancing on a chair, and The Architects, inspired by Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel.

The set was available in four sizes. The 8 x 10′ for $100 sold out as did the 16 x 20′ versions at $200. Prints for $150 and $2000 remain available.

Bekman also produced a successful project with Mike and Doug Starn. A series of a black and white images of a majestic tree, priced $20 to $2000, sold out.

Bekman is among the few dealers experimenting with on-line models and seems to be in the vanguard of finding commercial success. She raised $800,000 in venture capital funds last fall, which I reported on here.

The site’s most recent offering, William Powhida’s satirical “Why Should You Buy Art” is flying off the virtual gallery walls. The $20 edition of 200 has sold out as has a larger $200 edition. The works were available for sale starting at 2:30 pm today. So why should you buy art, according to Powhida? Two items from his list: “Grown Adults will Kiss Your Ass” and “Like Shopping and Gambling at the Same Time.”