Bloomberg: Adam Sender Dresses Up Hedge Fund Rooms With Ruscha, Dan Flavin
Sender curator Sarah Aibel with Chris Ofili sculpture in entrance to New York's Exis Capital
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A black-and-white Ed Ruscha painting with the words “Let’s Be Realistic” spelled out in bold white letters hangs outside the sound-proof trading room at art collector Adam Sender’s hedge fund.
Sender’s curator, Sarah Aibel, 28, is giving me a tour of the art-stocked office in an old loft building in New York’s SoHo district.
“Trading is what he does for work,” Aibel says of Sender. “And when he’s not trading, art is what he does for love.”
In the trading room, the light is movie-theater low. Sender, who declined to be interviewed, is seated at what resembles a science-fiction command center, surrounded by two dozen glowing monitors.
Out in the hall, a Kara Walker mural runs along a wall. A pink-and-green neon sculpture by minimalist Dan Flavin illuminates a corner. An otherwise generic conference room is hung with a piercing John Currin painting. “The Activists” depicts a frail elderly woman seated before a microphone, holding a sheet with a presumed list of grievances.
“The traders are so focused on finance, the art gives them a break,” Aibel says.
Sender, 41, has collected art…
Bloomberg News: Mel Gibson, Wife Get $5.2 Million for Famous Parrish
Maxfield Parrish "Daybreak" sold for $5.2 million at Christie's. Image: Christie's
Link to Bloomberg story here.
By Lindsay Pollock
May 20 (Bloomberg) — Maxfield Parrish’s famous 1922 “Daybreak” sold for $5.2 million today at Christie’s International in New York, at the low end of the $4 million to $7 million presale estimate.
The seller was actor Mel Gibson and his wife, Robyn, who filed for divorce last year. The buyer was an unnamed phone bidder.
The price was well below the $7.6 million Robyn Gibson paid at Christie’s in 2006. At the time, the price established an auction record for Parrish.
The painting had previously sold for $4.3 million at Sotheby’s in 1996 when it was purchased by billionaire James Jannard, founder of the Oakley Inc. sunglasses company.
“The Parrish market is very small,” said dealer Betty Krulik, standing near the front of the Christie’s Rockefeller Center salesroom. “The owners were the big recent buyers,” she said. “Another big buyer — Michael Jackson — is dead. That limits competition.”
Jim Halperin, co-chairman of Dallas-based Heritage Auctions, was one of two contenders bidding for the Parrish over the phone. He said he owns about a dozen Parrish…
Bloomberg News – Cnet Founder Minor Sells $21.1 Million of Art to Pay Creditors
Photo: via Bloomberg News
Link to Bloomberg News here.
By Katya Kazakina and Lindsay Pollock
May 14 (Bloomberg) — A painting of a blue-eyed nurse by Richard Prince and an aluminum couch by Marc Newson were among the artworks sold by Halsey Minor that helped the CNET Networks Inc. founder raise $21.1 million to pay his creditors.
His collection accounted for just 22 of the 74 lots offered at a contemporary art-and-design auction last night held by Phillips de Pury & Co. in New York, yet they took in more than half of the $37.9 million total, and were the highlight of the evening.
“He’s got a good eye,” said John Good, a director at Gagosian gallery in New York. “Between Prince, Newson and Ruscha, these are A pieces.”
Proceeds from the sale of Minor’s artworks will go toward a $21.6 million judgment obtained in October by ML Private Finance, a Bank of America affiliate, on a delinquent loan to Minor.
The Minor collection is too young for provenance to contribute to artworks’ value, said Todd Levin, director of New York-based advisers, Levin Art Group.…
Bloomberg News – Warhol Portrait of Gaunt Self Fetches $32.6 Million in N.Y.
Photo: via Bloomberg News
Coverage from Wednesday night follows…
Link to Bloomberg News story here.
By Lindsay Pollock and Philip Boroff
May 13 (Bloomberg) — A purple Andy Warhol portrait of himself looking wild-haired and gaunt fetched $32.6 million at a New York auction last night, twice the work’s presale estimate, as buyers sought rare art amid financial-market volatility.
The nine-square-foot 1986 “Self-Portrait,” completed a year before the artist’s death, was offered by fashion designer Tom Ford and went to an unidentified buyer. The silkscreen ink, acrylic paint on canvas was the priciest item of Sotheby’s 53- lot sale that tallied $190 million, against the company’s presale estimate of $161.8 million. Just three lots were unsold.
“Self Portrait” ranks among the three most-expensive works by Warhol sold at auction and is the costliest of his latter-year works. The record was the $71.1 million paid in 2007 in New York for his 1963 “Green Car Crash.”
“People are willing to break (price) boundaries with late Warhols,” said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s chief auctioneer and head of the contemporary-art department, after the sale.
Yesterday’s sale brings the two-week total of Sotheby’s…
Christie’s to Sell Salander Artworks June 9
Bloomberg’s Philip Boroff has the news of Christie’s June 9 sale of artworks from the defunct Salander-O’Reilly Galleries. The whole group is estimated to sell for over $2.5 million.
One of the most unusual and intriguing aspects of the sale is that all the Salander lots are covered by Aris, a title insurance company.
Click here to read Boroff’s Bloomberg story.
Bloomberg News – Collector Sues as Rothko Goes on Block Tonight for $25 Million
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…
Bloomberg News – Crichton’s $29 Million Jasper Johns Flag Boosts Christie’s Sale
Photo: via Bloomberg News
Link to Blooomberg News story here.
By Lindsay Pollock and Philip Boroff
May 12 (Bloomberg) — A Jasper Johns painting of the American flag from the estate of author Michael Crichton sold for a record $28.6 million last night in New York at Christie’s International’s biggest contemporary art auction in two years.
The $231.9 million total beat the pre-auction high estimate of $207.4 million, with just five of the 79 lots failing to sell. The Johns flag was the top item, one of 31 from Crichton’s estate that fetched a total of $93.3 million.
Collectors said the buoyant sale reflected confidence in the economy, concern about impending inflation and the caliber of the art. American bidders dominated the evening, accounting for 72 percent of the sales, according to Christie’s.
“People are feeling good,” billionaire collector Eli Broad said, pointing out that gold reached a record $1,234.50 an ounce in New York yesterday. “People don’t want to hold currencies.”
Gold has climbed 12 percent in 2010, while the euro has dropped 12 percent against the dollar on concern about mounting European debt. Last week, Christie’s…
Bloomberg News – Mel Gibson, Wife Put $15 Million Parrish Works on Auction Block
Maxfield Parrish "Sing a Song of Sixpence." Photo: via Bloomberg
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By Lindsay Pollock
May 7 (Bloomberg) — Mel Gibson and his wife, Robyn, who filed for divorce last year, are selling a $15 million Maxfield Parrish collection at Christie’s International on May 20 in New York, according to two people familiar with the situation. Christie’s declined to identify the seller.
The works are identified in the auction catalog as “property from a private American collection.”
The priciest painting is expected to be Parrish’s famous neo-classical “Daybreak” (1922), rendered in luminous glazes, including the artist’s signature cobalt blue.
The painting depicts an encounter between a young girl and a reclining toga-clad maiden, framed by columns and a heroic mountain landscape. The work is estimated at a recession- friendly $4 million to $7 million.
Robyn Gibson acquired the painting at Christie’s in New York in May 2006 for $7.6 million, setting a record price for Parrish at auction. The painting previously fetched a record $4.3 million at Sotheby’s in 1996, selling to billionaire James Jannard, founder of the Oakley Inc. sunglasses company.
“’Daybreak’ is an idealized view,” said…
Bloomberg News – Asians Buoy Sotheby’s $196 Million New York Impressionist Sale
Sotheby's Simon Shaw and Emmanuel Di Donna hang Modigliani
Link to Bloomberg story here.
By Lindsay Pollock and Philip Boroff
May 6 (Bloomberg) — Asian buyers won four of the top ten lots last night in New York, as Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art tally tripled to $195.7 million from a year ago.
The evening’s highest price, $28.6 million, was for a floral 1919 Matisse, “Bouquet de fleurs pour le Quatorze Juillet.” A day earlier, rival auction house Christie’s International took a record $106.5 million for a Picasso in an Impressionist and modern sale that totaled $335.5 million.
“Wealthy investors can see the rebound is real,” said John Rogers Jr., chief executive of Chicago-based Ariel Investments, which held 3.2 million Sotheby’s shares at year-end. “This is a confidence game. They’re more confident,” he said after watching last night’s auction with his 20-year-old daughter, Victoria, an art-history major at Yale University.
The Impressionist evening auctions keep the market on track for a predicted $1.2 billion of spring art sales in New York over two weeks and provide momentum for next week’s contemporary art bidding. Sotheby’s shares have more…
Bloomberg News – Picasso Nude Fetches Record $106.5 Million in N.Y. as Dow Drops
Photo: via Bloomberg News
Link to Bloomberg story here.
By Lindsay Pollock and Philip Boroff
May 5 (Bloomberg) — Pablo Picasso’s 1932 lilac-hued oil painting of his young mistress, Marie-Therese Walter, sold for a record $106.5 million in New York last night, hours after the U.S. stock market had its biggest drop since February.
“Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” featuring the artist’s profile hovering over a reclining Walter and against a blue backdrop with philodendron leaves, is the most paid for an artwork at auction. It went to an unidentified phone buyer who beat seven rivals after a nine-minute bidding war. The price exceeds host Christie’s International’s own presale estimate of between $70 million to $90 million for the painting.
“Masterpieces are recession proof,” said New York dealer Guy Bennett, in an interview.
Picasso’s paintings of Walter are some of his most-coveted because of their size and expressiveness, among other qualities.
Other works from the same series belong to the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, casino mogul Steve Wynn and SAC Capital Advisors LP founder Steven A. Cohen. The record price for this painting…
