Bob Adelman's Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech, Adelman/Magnum, via Bloomberg
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…
Frances Lasker Brody
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…
"The Magazine Antiques" Jan/Feb 2010 issue
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…
Eli Broad, via Forbes
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…
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…
Tony Shafrazi and Steve Cohen at Art Basel Miami Beach, via Shala
Shala Monroque, a fashionista blessed with perfect bone structure and sartorial flare, attended Art Basel Miami Beach with art dealer boyfriend Larry Gagosian.
Luckily for us, she posted some excellent pics on her blog, including a Dec. 5 section titled “What Happens in Miami Does Not Stay in Miami.”
Shala captures dealer Tony Shafrazi faux-strangling hedge fund manager Steve Cohen, as an amused Gagosian and billionaire Eli Broad –eye-brows raised–look on. Shala’s witty caption reads…
Ron Mueck's "Untitled (Big Man)," 2000, from the Hirshhorn's collection
Interview by Lindsay Pollock
Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) — Shaquille O’Neal, the 7’1” all-star center with the National Basketball Association’s Cleveland Cavaliers, has discovered that art is no slam dunk.
Moonlighting for the first time as a curator, O’Neal is overseeing “Size DOES Matter,’’ an exhibition on the theme of scale in contemporary art coming in February to New York’s nonprofit Flag Art Foundation.
“New York is the art capital, so I’m pleased to be starting at the top,’’ O’Neal, 37, said in…
Warhol's 1966 portrait of Holly Solomon
Art dealer Holly Solomon’s papers, including 220 boxes of materials tracing her involvement with Manhattan’s cultural scene from the 1970s-1990s, have been donated to the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. Solomon died in 2002 at the age of 68.
The trove includes letters between Solomon and artists Gordon Matta-Clark, William Wegman and others. The material is being processed and will be available to researchers and others, with written permission from her sons.
The Solomon collection includes gallery announcements, exhibition catalogs and audio visual materials, according to Jason Stieber,…
Henkel Heir, Mistress Settle Suit on $48 Million in Two Hirsts
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — Udo Fritz-Hermann Brandhorst, an heir to Germany’s Henkel AG & Co. fortune and a major art collector, avoided a public court case in New York by settling a lawsuit filed by his former mistress involving two Damien Hirst sculptures and a custody dispute.
The settlement was reached Sunday night according to the woman,…
Rubell Family Collection in Wynwood, Miami
The Rubells’ cheekily titled show is presumably not a commentary on art collecting in a recession.
The Miami-based Rubell Family Collection mount their annual must-see Art Basel Miami Beach-timed show, inspired by Picasso’s quote, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” Beg Borrow and Steal includes 260 artworks by 74 artists owned by the Rubells, and runs Dec. 2-May 29, 2010.
The idea for the show originated in 2005, during conversations between Don and Mera Rubell and artists Kelly Walker and Wade Guyton, who described how they…
