Pop art collected by Gunter Sachs, ex-husband of Bridget Bardot, to be auctioned in London
LONDON — A
modern art collection, including works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and
Salvador Dali, will be sold next week in London, Sotheby’s said Saturday.
The works were
collected by German-born photographer Gunter Sachs, best known for his playboy
lifestyle and brief marriage to French actress Brigitte Bardot. He committed
suicide at the age of 78 in May 2011.
Sachs had
collected hundreds of art works over his lifetime and was friends with many key
artists of the 20th century, including Warhol, Dali and Georges Mathieu.
Warhol’s
portrait of Bridget Bardot, Sachs’ second wife, is one of the works being
auctioned. A white plaster bust of Bardot by Alain Gourdon also is for sale.
Sotheby’s will
auction the 300 pieces on Tuesday and Wednesday, and it expects them to fetch
more than 20 million pounds ($32 million).
Sachs made his
name as a photographer, documentary filmmaker and art collector. He lived a jet
set lifestyle, spending time with top artists in Paris and New York.
Oliver Barker,
a contemporary art specialist at Sotheby’s, said: “Gunter’s unique contribution
was his sex appeal, his handsome good looks,” and his “the promotion of
American art in Europe in the 1970s.”
Copyright 2012
The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
No Sign of Financial Crisis at Postwar Art Sales
NEW YORK — Big money continues to pour over
postwar and contemporary art. At Sotheby’s Wednesday evening sale, 46 works of
the 57 that were on offer sold for $266.6 million.
Gigantic prices were paid for paintings by the
most famous artists of the second half of the 20th century. The three most
expensive works were iconic pictures executed by artists long dead.
Roy Lichtenstein, one of the shining lights of
New York Pop Art, painted “Sleeping Girl” in 1964. The picture was included in
the artist’s show that year at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles where it was
bought by a couple of renowned collectors, Philip and Beatrice Gersh. The
portrait remained in their collection for nearly half a century and never hit
the market until this week. Sotheby’s estimate was set at an extremely
ambitious $30 million to $40 million, plus a sale charge of over 12 percent.
“Sleeping Girl” managed to edge its way up to a world-record $44.88 million.
Moments later, it was Francis Bacon’s turn to
cause a stir with a picture also set in the concrete of art history. The
British artist painted “Figure Writing Reflected in a Mirror” in 1976 and took
it to Paris to be exhibited in a one-man show at the Galerie Claude Bernard in
early 1977.
The huge composition (198 by 147 centimeters, or
78 by 58 inches), which served as the exhibition poster, was acquired there and
then by a European collector who sold it this week.
Never before offered in the market, the Bacon
had everything in its favor. The artist’s works are scarce, and its large size
made this one rarer still. “Figure Reflected in a Mirror” was further enhanced
by its past history. It carried the same estimate as Lichtenstein’s “Sleeping
Girl” and realized the same price, $44.88 million.
The third highest price on Wednesday evening was
the most remarkable in its own way. “Double Elvis [Ferus Type],” a monumental
image at over 207 centimeters high, in silk screen print and paint, was
executed by Andy Warhol in 1963, just as Pop Art was
taking off on a grand scale.
Warhol has been elevated to the status of a folk
hero in the global news media over the past four decades, as has the subject of
the picture, Elvis Presley, seen standing legs apart, revolver in hand.
Warhol’s source for the image was a publicity still for a movie, “Flaming
Star,” starring Presley as the gunslinger Pacer Burton.
But “Double Elvis [Ferus Type]” suffers from a
weakness. The grayish hue lacks the punch given by color to the Warhol works
that are most admired by his fans. The estimate, $30 million to $50 million,
plus the sale charge, was a tall order. Somehow, the gray picture ascended to
$37.04 million, which says a great deal about the keenness of contemporary art
buyers for very large iconic works with famous names attached to them.
Two lots down, yet another gray image confirmed
that the thirst of postwar and contemporary art buyers for very large works
signed by artists who rose to world fame in the 1960s is unquenchable.
“Untitled (New York City), 1970,” signed by Cy Twombly, could not be further
removed from the Warhol.
The work is abstract, not figural. A dark gray
panel is covered with regular lines of rhythmical white scribbling. Sotheby’s
expected it to be knocked down between $15 million and $20 million. It fetched
$17.44 million, setting one more world record.
Had Sotheby’s been lucky enough to garner as
many imposing post-World War II works as Christie’s there is little doubt that the Wednesday
session would have aroused the same enthusiasm. The enormous prices paid for
the Lichtenstein, the Bacon, the Warhol and the Twombly demonstrate that buyers
were as eager as ever.
But seen together, the 57 lots that came up at
Sotheby’s made up a far less impressive sale. Several lots sold on just one bid
and 11 of them fell unwanted in an atmosphere that was quite dull during the
second half of the session.
Yet demand was strong enough throughout for
works of lesser importance to do very well as long as they lent themselves to
instant identification.
Lichtenstein’s “Sailboats III, 1974,” was
brilliantly sold at $11.84 million, even though this later period of the artist
is less sought after. On its appearance at Christie’s in May 1998, the price
paid by the consignor was a more modest $1.37 million.
Jean Michel Basquiat’s “Ring,” done in the
manner of a naughty schoolboy chalking cartoons on the blackboard in the
master’s absence, shot up to $7.64 million. In June 1999, at Christie’s in Los
Angeles, the Basquiat had cost the late collector Theodore J. Forstmann a mere
$442,500.
Even if less successful than the Christie’s
Tuesday session, Sotheby’s evening auction on Wednesday illustrates the
spectacular appreciation of most of the artists who rose to fame in the second
half of the 20th century. But it also indicates that those artists’ less
recognizable works can perform unpredictably.
Robert Rauschenberg’s “Primo Calle/Roci
Venezuela” is a 1985 composition executed in a manner that differs from the Pop
artist’s earlier work. This week’s consignor paid $2.61 million when it came up
at Sotheby’s in November 2007. On Wednesday, the Rauschenberg, which carried a
$2 million to $3 million estimate plus the sale charge, interested no one.
Those who seek gilt-edged securities in postwar
and contemporary art need to make sure they are in a position to identify the
right targets.
Connecting the dots on Roy Lichtenstein retrospective at Art Institute
If you're going to the
new Roy Lichtenstein retrospective opening May 22 at the Art Institute of Chicago, do this: Stop at the giant display
graphic that serves as the show's entrance and turn to the right. Hanging just
inside the doorway to the first gallery is Lichtenstein's iconic "Look
Mickey" from 1961, a large replica of a Golden Book panel that shows
Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck fishing. It's the first of several Lichtenstein
works that established him in the 1960s (alongside Andy Warhol) as one of the most important artists of the '60s pop art
movement. The only name on the work, however, is Lichtenstein's; the creator of
the original goes unnamed.
In a 1966 interview
with the BBC, Lichtenstein said
he initially used the panels for reference, copying Mickey and Donald into abstracted
works (two of which are included in the show). But he was more taken with the
originals than his interpretations, and the thought "of doing one without
apparent alteration just occurred."
This, of course —
colorful, subtly altered mimicking of comic book art — became Lichtenstein's
signature.
Now turn to the left.
Just beyond that
doorway is the show's last gallery. Hanging on the wall facing you is one of
the replicas of Chinese landscape art that Lichtenstein painted in the 1990s,
works that used many of the elements — a clean look, bright colors, tiny
Ben-Day graphic dots — he famously employed in his '60s comic art images.
"I love standing
in this spot, seeing old and new," said James Rondeau, the Art Institute's
curator of contemporary art and organizer of the retrospective. "Because
this show is about transformation — how you can take something that exists in
the world and, in order to make it art, rethink and distill, then send it back
in such a way we all learn something about it. That Mickey piece shows us
something about our culture, the way we think about images. Then turn, and you
see where Roy was heading. And it's Lichtenstein saying this Song Dynasty
landscape is the same as that comic art, that both are graphic languages, that
both use pictorial conventions. He's saying art history, fine art and
commercial art are collapsing together, always."
He's also preaching
to the choir.
At least he is in
2012.
Decades ago,
Lichtenstein, without necessarily intending to be, was radical. Years before
any hip-hop artist ever sampled James Brown, his work was a quasi lecture on
art appropriation. And he reignited the once-caustic debate about the
legitimacy of fine art versus popular art — a debate that, decades later, feels
as irrelevant and uninformed as the question of whether a comic book can be
sophisticated and smart.
Indeed, the
Lichtenstein show — which includes more than 160 works and spends considerable
time on less familiar, more abstract periods of Lichtenstein's five-decade
career — is far from radical, not even particularly surprising. If anything,
it's a confirmation of Lichtenstein's points, a kind of conversation about how
stiff the cultural conversation once was. "Roy insisted on the authority
of the artificial. We live in that world now," Rondeau said. "We
don't theorize it. We take it for granted. His ideas are our cultural
oxygen."
And yet, if so, why
not mention the original comic book artists? Even hip-hop (mostly) acknowledges
its inspirations and appropriations and blatant thefts. But in exhibitions of
Lichtenstein's art, almost never.
Hilary Barta is 54,
lives in Lincoln Square and has the sunken, exhausted eyes of a guy who works
far into the night. For the past 30 years, he has been a comic book artist. He
is not a superstar — or an unknown. He started out working for Marvel on X-Men
and The Thing comics; he has since worked as an artist-for-hire (a fairly
common industry arrangement) for every major comic book publisher and, being
widely known in publishing circles as a talented satirist, he's currently
drawing "Simpsons" and"SpongeBob
SquarePants" comics.
He's also the kind of
workaday comic book artist Lichtenstein would have borrowed from, if
Lichtenstein started today.
We asked Barta to
come to a preview of the Lichtenstein show. We got the idea after attending an
Art Institute-sponsored panel in April featuring acclaimed comic book artists.
Though the panel was intended to celebrate Lichtenstein, Neal Adams, a
celebrated superhero artist, let loose: "(Lichtenstein) stole from
everybody," he said. "Every comic book artist curses his name!"
Afterward we called Gary Gianni, a Chicago cartoonist (and former Tribune
illustrator) known for drawing the syndicated "Prince Valiant" newspaper strip. "I
never thought of Lichtenstein as stealing millions from pockets of struggling
illustrators," he said. "But some do see it that way. I think now
that the line between his work and the work he took has blurred so much that
frankly I would rather see a show now about the artists he took from than a
Lichtenstein show."
We invited Geof
Darrow, another Chicago comic book artist, known for "Big Guy and Rusty
the Boy Robot" (as well his designs in the "Matrix" trilogy), to
come with us to the preview. He said he would probably be too incensed to be
very fair: "Why not run a concurrent show of Lichtenstein's art sources
for once?" he asked.
Barta was more
agnostic, more uncertain of his feelings. We stood before the 1961 Mickey
painting.
"My first
thought is that this is not a very good comic book panel," he chuckled.
"This was originally most likely done with paint and a certain amount of
style and well-crafted. But Lichtenstein removed all that style."
As we walked into the
gallery devoted to Lichtenstein's iconic comic art appropriations, he was
struck by the scale. He said he was struck by how cold they were compared with
the originals — how stripped of soul the images seemed.
He walked from piece
to piece, from barking submarine commanders to swooning heroines to blazing
machine guns, identifying the original artists — John Romita, Jack Kirby.
"You know what's incredible," he said, "is how subtle
Lichtenstein is, how muted. They don't come off like a pretentious take on
comic books at all. They're very simple. He clearly made them a very different
thing, no question."
Then he stopped and
read the wall copy
"'Cliches'? They
call these panels cliches?" he asked, more to himself. "Do they
really mean that?" He sounded hurt. He read on. He pointed to a mention of
Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock. He noted that the individual comic
book titles are acknowledged but artists' names are missing. He was not
shocked: "But I think that's condescending. Not from the Art Institute.
It's a general condescension from the art world. They find the thoughtfulness
to cite fine artists but not other artists? Truth is, it probably doesn't occur
to them."
Jack Cowart,
executive director of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, has heard the
complaints. He said that Lichtenstein was never sued for copyright infringement
and, when the pieces were initially celebrated in the 1960s, comic book
publishers never raised the issue.
Asked why the artists
are never cited, he said that acknowledging the source material would have made
Lichtenstein's work too much about the original and that viewers wouldn't be
able to take the new work at face value. Rondeau doesn't disagree.
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He said he never
wanted to ground the show in any outside context, "which could become
insistent. I think the (original) work has equal value. I do. But it's just not
my field. It belongs to a study of material culture and illustration."
Rondeau said
Lichtenstein was never disingenuous. Pointing to the large Ben-Day dots inside
a painting of a magnifying glass lens, he said: "See, Roy's showing you
what he did, literally showing you his methods."
Indeed, artist Laurie
Lambrecht, a former Lichtenstein assistant, remembers the man as deliberate,
modest — "He once told me far more talented people worked just as hard,
but their careers never took off like his."
Even David Barsalou,
a retired art teacher in Massachusetts who has been documenting Lichtenstein's
original sources since 1979, said the shaming of Lichtenstein was never his
intention, "just equal recognition for artists often as educated and
visually sophisticated as fine artists." Lichtenstein's "Look
Mickey," for instance, was the work of two Disney artists, Bob Grant and Bob Totten.
Rick Yager, another
illustrator appropriated by Lichtenstein (though none of those works are in the
new show), attended the School of the Art Institute. Barsalou has documented
about 150 such pieces, posting the results on his website, Deconstructing Roy
Lichtenstein.
Joe Kubert, now 85,
is one of the artists Lichtenstein often used. Kubert has never really minded,
he said.
"Appropriating
or not, I think every artist steals," he said. "I have my
motivations, and Lichtenstein had his." Ironically, on the Lichtenstein
Foundation website, a picture of a growling comic book dog illustrates its
warning to any potential copyright violators. It's a near perfect copy of a
growling dog that Kubert once drew.
About midway though
our walk-through, having passed by Lichtenstein's comic book years, his
commercial illustration period, his Ben-Day dot mirrors, his sketch-pad pages,
sculptures and a gallery devoted to several playful parodies of Picasso,
Mondrian and Monet (none of whom are credited in gallery labels either,
incidentally), Barta stopped short before a series of paintings of
Lichtenstein's own studio. He could not pull his eyes from one piece in
particular. It was white and yellow and from 1973. It shows a sofa, telephone,
still-life fruits at the foot of furniture and, hanging on the wall in the
picture, Lichtenstein's 1961 Mickey painting.
Very meta.
"Very
pre-meta," Barta corrected.
The work is bright
and charming, and only half of the painting-within-the-painting shows. Also,
the painting-within-the-painting (hanging above the painted sofa) is smoother
than the earlier, cruder take of the same image that opens the show.
"Don't you think this is more about collecting art than about the work
itself?" Barta asked. "It's definitely Lichtenstein having fun. A
comment on his profession? Don't you think?"
Yes. And maybe.
If there's an
especially glaring omission in this sprawling retrospective, it's one that
can't be helped: A Roy Lichtenstein show in 2012 offers such an opportunity to
discuss how much of our culture was anticipated by his art and methods, it's
hard not to wish we could hear from the artist himself, who died in 1997 at 73.
Then again, Lichtenstein once said his art was "anti-contemplative … anti
all of those brilliant ideas of preceding movements which everyone understands
so thoroughly." He never did say much — not nearly enough.
Said Cowart:
"His work is so seemingly clear we tend to forget what he was actually up
to. And unfortunately, Roy was not good at explaining that. What you see is
what you get. Except when you don't."
Asked about his use
of comic book imagery, Lichtenstein would say he found aspects of commercial
art forceful, overwhelming. A musician could cover a tune and create a
distinct, aesthetically legitimate work, he said, but an artwork that
incorporates a cartoon is seen as a cartoon itself. Whether that translated
into respect for cartoonists whose work he appropriated and never acknowledged
by name is unclear.
Though Lichtenstein's
paintings have been offered by cultural critics as a sign of newfound
appreciation for comic books, cartoonist Art Spiegelman once quipped:
"Lichtenstein did no more or less for comics than Andy Warhol did for
soup."
Walking quickly
through the show's later galleries, Barta swung back and forth between
appreciating Lichtenstein's loving mimicry and wondering why, decades later,
source material remains unacknowledged.
He came across as
seriously conflicted.
"Maybe 20 years
ago, I'd have felt militant," he said. "But I can't deny comics have
a place in the culture now. I can't say Lichtenstein is getting the attention.
Look at (cartoonist) Daniel Clowes' museum show that just opened in California.
But then I'm certainly not speaking for the cartoonists whose work is in this
show.
"As an art fan,
looking at this, it's hard to believe anyone once thought Lichtenstein's ideas
were shocking. But as a comic book fan, when I look at a Lichtenstein version
of, say, a John Romita panel, the meaningfulness on Lichtenstein's end has
mostly fallen away, and what's remained beautiful is the John Romita itself.
Lichtenstein was about changing context, of course. He meant something
different than what the original meant. And yet, with or without him, the
context has changed again. Now I see Lichtenstein's version of a Joe Kubert
explosion and think, 'Someone likes Kubert. But they flattened him in the
process.'"
We pointed to a sign
on the gallery wall. It read, "No photographs, video or film
permitted."
"That's
irony," Barta said. "That's hilarious, actually. Except it
isn't."
Bringing home the Bacon: The record-breaking pop art masterpieces that fetched tens of millions at auction
The world's economy might be struggling, but not the world's art economy.
These classic pieces of pop art have been fetching record prices after going under the hammer in New York.
Paintings by
Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Francis Bacon were among those put up for
sale at Sotheby's auction house.
Bringing home the Bacon: The record-breaking
pop art masterpieces that fetched tens of millions at auction
Andy Warhol's
Double Elvis portrait of Elvis Presley is auctioned at Sotheby's in New York
Francis Bacon's
'Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror' fetched £27.7million at the auction at
Sotheby's
Worhol's
painting of Elvis Presley went for a staggering £23million and a record
£27.7million was paid for Lichtenstein's iconic Sleeping Girl.
Bacon's Figure
Writing Reflected in Mirror also fetched £27.7million.
A work
featuring one ton of handmade porcelain sunflower seeds by Chinese dissident
artist Ai Weiwei also made £484,000.
It follows the
highest price paid for a piece of contemporary art last week at Christie's in
New York - £53.8million for Mark Rothko's 1961 painting Orange, Red, Yellow.
Edvard Munch's
The Scream also became the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction when it
went for £74.1million last week.
Meanwhile, a
recently-discovered sketch by Andy Warhol as a child is to go on display for
the first time.
The drawing,
which is owned by Devon-based businessman Andy Fields, has been loaned to an
art gallery in Bristol.
Mr Fields, 48,
said he bought the work of art - which he said is worth an estimated
£1.3million - two years ago for just $5 at a garage sale in Las Vegas.
The illustration
of American singer Rudy Vallee, which dates from the late 1930s, is thought to
have been drawn by the artist when he was aged 10 or 11.
The pencil
portrait, which was drawn on a now-tattered piece of paper, ended up in the
possession of Edith Smith, Warhol's former carer.
It is full of
the pop art motifs synonymous with Warhol, including his signature bright red
lips and a typically pop art blocked background.
The Warhol
sketch has gone on display at the Royal West of England Academy and is part of
a collaboration with Avon and Somerset Police.
Meanwhile, a
recently-discovered sketch by Andy Warhol as a child is to go on display for
the first time.
The drawing,
which is owned by Devon-based businessman Andy Fields, has been loaned to an
art gallery in Bristol.
Mr Fields, 48,
said he bought the work of art - which he said is worth an estimated
£1.3million - two years ago for just $5 at a garage sale in Las Vegas.
The illustration
of American singer Rudy Vallee, which dates from the late 1930s, is thought to
have been drawn by the artist when he was aged 10 or 11.
The pencil
portrait, which was drawn on a now-tattered piece of paper, ended up in the
possession of Edith Smith, Warhol's former carer.
It is full of
the pop art motifs synonymous with Warhol, including his signature bright red
lips and a typically pop art blocked background.
The Warhol
sketch has gone on display at the Royal West of England Academy and is part of
a collaboration with Avon and Somerset Police.
Rudy Vallee has
been loaned to an art gallery in Bristol and is to go on public display for the
first time
Lichtenstein Before (and After) the Pop Hits
We tend to think of Roy Lichtenstein in
one context: Pop art's master parodist. His transformed cartoon panels—with
hyperventilating speech balloons and transcribed sounds like whaam! and
varoom!—sent up mid-20th-century commercial visual culture even as they dragged
it into the realm of fine art.
Roy Lichtenstein's Laocoön (1988), inspired by classical
mythology, will be on view in Chicago.
No museum's contemporary-art collection
is complete without one of Lichtenstein's sighing blondes or square-jawed
fighter pilots. But that's usually all visitors see.
The Art Institute of Chicago intends to
challenge this pigeonholing with an expansive new look at Lichtenstein's vast
and varied output over half a century. The major new show—billed as the largest
survey of the artist's work ever mounted, and the first since his death in
1997—opens to the public on Wednesday.
Culled from public and private
collections in America, Europe and elsewhere, "Roy Lichtenstein: A
Retrospective" brings together more than 160 of the artist's paintings,
sculptures and drawings—several never shown before. After its Windy City stop,
the show opens Oct. 14 at Washington's National Gallery of Art, next Feb. 21 at
London's Tate Modern and July 3, 2013, at Paris's Centre Pompidou. The
underlying message: Roy, we hardly knew you.
This look "at the full
breadth" of Lichtenstein's work, as Art Institute president and director
Douglas Druick puts it, dovetails with continuing demand for Lichtenstein's
work at major art auctions. His "Sleeping Girl," a comic-strip
painting, sold Thursday at Sotheby's in New York for $44.9 million, a record
for the artist.
Such classic Pop works of Lichtenstein,
born in 1923, are well represented in the new exhibition. They include 1961's
"Look Mickey" (which appropriates Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse), some
black-and-white renderings of phone-book ads for washing machines and sneakers,
and the famous recomposed cartoons. But so are Lichtenstein's pre-Pop
experiments in Cubo-Futurism and the dominant (and ultimately rejected) style
of Lichtenstein's youth, abstract expressionism.
In later years, as an entire
80-foot-long gallery in the retrospective demonstrates, the artist spent much
of his time in witty dialogue with art history. He produced paintings that
borrow from and comment on works from antiquity, traditional Japanese
landscapes and American-history painting (such as Emanuel Leutze's
"Washington Crossing the Delaware" of 1851). Lichtenstein's
"dialogues" were also with such artists as Pablo Picasso, Henri
Matisse, Piet Mondrian and 1980s neo-expressionists like Julian Schnabel.
“The signature comic-book heroines disappeared, but
Lichtenstein kept offering fresh takes on art.”
At the same time, the show suggests
that much of Lichtenstein's mature work flowed out of the impulse that animated
his Pop masterpieces of the 1960s: a desire to critique the present moment in
art by offering fresh perspectives on the forgotten, devalued and/or
mass-produced art of the past.
"After 1966, when Lichtenstein's
heroines and pilots from the comics disappear, people think the Pop phase is
over, but that's not true," says the show's co-curator, the Art
Institute's James Rondeau. "As his work moves from the cartoon panels to
explosions, for example, it's the same kind of parodying of extreme emotional
states—the histrionics of war, the melodrama of heartbreak—that the comics are
engaged with in a very detached way."
Artist who created 'Love' sculpture renounces other work, gets sued
Kim
Kyung-hoon / REUTERS
By
Jason McLure, Reuters
An
83-year-old artist known for his block letter "LOVE" design that
became a symbol of the anti-war movement in the 1960s is being sued by a
Monaco-based art dealer for renouncing the authenticity of sculptures once
valued as high as $1 million.
Beginning
in 2008, art buyer Joao Tovar paid $481,625 for 10 sculptures of the word PREM,
a Sanskrit term meaning "love," from a one-time business partner of
renowned pop artist Robert Indiana, Tovar said in the lawsuit filed in superior
court in Rockland, Maine.
Tovar
says he bought the sculptures from longtime Indiana associate John Gilbert
because he believed Indiana had officially licensed their production.
Indiana,
who lives on an island off the Maine coast, renounced the sculptures in a 2009
letter to New York dealer Simon Salama-Caro, saying they had been conceived by
Gilbert in India and made without his permission. The move led auction house
Christie's to remove them from an upcoming sale.
Best
known for his 1964 block letter creation featuring an L-O arranged on top of a
V-E, Indiana's works are part of the permanent collection of major museums
including the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institution and the Whitney
Museum of Modern Art. The LOVE design, on which the PREM sculptures were based,
was featured on an 8-cent U.S. postage stamp issued on Valentine's Day in 1973.
Indiana's
denial of his approval "rendered the sculptures worth little more than the
materials from which they were made," says the suit, which was filed April
30. Further complicating the matter, Tovar's suit says some of the works he
bought have been sold multiple times, most recently for a total of $1.1
million.
Indiana,
reached by telephone this week, told Reuters he "absolutely" denied
the allegations in the suit but declined further comment.
Tovar
says that he relied upon a 2008 certificate of authenticity provided by Gilbert
that includes Indiana's signature and the words "To Tovar" at the
bottom of the page near Gilbert's signature. Court filings show that Indiana
acknowledged that the signature on the document was his but that it was meant
as a souvenir for Tovar, rather than acknowledgement that the work was his.
On
April 24, Gilbert and Indiana settled a dispute in federal court in New York
over the PREM works after a judge found that Gilbert had attempted to
"force an artist -- here, defendant Robert Indiana -- to acknowledge
creation of a work that the artist did not create and does not like; and then
plaintiff could and would use such acknowledgement in selling such works to the
public as authentic creations by the artist."
The
judge in that case also found that Indiana had made an agreement with Gilbert
in 2007 under which Indiana would use Sanskrit characters to design a PREM
sculpture that Gilbert could produce and sell. That agreement did not cover the
design of a PREM sculpture using the Latin alphabet - like the work purchased
by Tovar -- because Indiana felt such a design "looked like a refrigerator,"
according to court documents.
$44.8 Million, Going Twice at Sotheby’s
A blond bombshell and a twisted male figure — classic images by Roy Lichtenstein and Francis Bacon — tied for top price at Sotheby’s on Wednesday night, bringing $44.8 million each.
It was the second of three consecutive evening contemporary art auctions in New York. And although the Sotheby’s sale was a more sober affair than the one at Christie’s on Tuesday, both showed that collectors from all over the world continue to be drawn to parking their cash in art they can enjoy, particularly when it is universally recognizable.
“Great icons make great prices,” Tobias Meyer, director of Sotheby’s contemporary art department worldwide and the evening’s auctioneer, said after the sale. He added, “The market is more global than ever before,” pointing out that the five bidders for Lichtenstein’s “Sleeping Girl,” from 1964, came from China, North and South America and Europe. The price paid by the winner — an unidentified telephone bidder — was a record for the artist, beating last year’s record of $43.2 million set at Christie’s in November.
While record prices were set for other artists, too, including Cy Twombly, Glenn Ligon and Ai Weiwei, the sale did not eclipse Christie’s Tuesday blockbuster, which set a record for the highest total for a contemporary art sale, $388.5 million. Sotheby’s auction totaled $266.6 million, in the middle of its estimate of $215.6 million to $303.9 million. Of the 57 works on offer, 11 failed to sell.
While the Christie’s auction was steeped in work by Abstract Expressionist painters like Rothko, whose 1961 canvas “Orange, Red, Yellow” sold for nearly $87 million — a record for any contemporary artwork at auction — the Sotheby’s sale had a different emphasis, with several top examples of Pop Art.
Besides the Lichtenstein, there were also a number of Warhols, including “Double Elvis (Ferus Type),” a 1963 image of the singer when he was 28, which was expected to bring $30 million to $50 million. It attracted two bidders, and sold to José Mugrabi, the New York dealer, for $33 million, or $37 million including Sotheby’s commission. (Final prices include the buyer’s commission to Sotheby’s: 25 percent of the first $50,000; 20 percent of the next $50,000 to $1 million and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)
Warhol’s “Ten-Foot Flowers,” executed in 1967-68, was painted on a canvas that measured nearly 100 square feet and made for a museum. It was estimated at $9 million to $12 million and sold to a telephone buyer for $9.5 million, or $10.7 million with fees.
When a good Francis Bacon comes up for sale, collectors jump. “Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror,” a 1976 canvas depicting a male figure thought to be the artist’s lover George Dyer, was the other top seller at $44.8 million, over its high estimate of $40 million.
There were five tenacious bidders wanting to bring the painting home and it ended up selling to Charles Moffett, Sotheby’s executive vice president and vice chairman of its worldwide Impressionist, modern and contemporary art department, who was bidding for a mystery client. (Mr. Moffett took the record-breaking winning bid of $119.9 million for Munch’s “The Scream” just a week ago.)
A later and smaller Bacon, “Study for a Portrait” from 1978, was snapped up by Donald L. Bryant, the New York collector, who was sitting in the front row. It had been estimated to bring $4 million to $6 million, and Mr. Bryant paid $3.75 million, or $4.2 million with fees. “I was happy to get it at that price,” he said.
There appears to be an endless appetite for high-end abstract paintings. A classic 1970 blackboard painting by Twombly, “Untitled (New York City),” covered in rolling sweeps of white scrawl, was expected to reach $15 million to $20 million. It sold to Stavaros Merjos, a Los Angeles collector, for $15.5 million, or $17.4 million with fees, just above its low estimate but nevertheless a record for the artist at auction.
Paintings by Gerhard Richter, 80, continue to bring top prices. One of his abstract compositions of fiery reds, from 1992, sold to a phone bidder for $15 million, or $16.8 million with fees, well above its high $10 million estimate.
Between his virtual house arrest over the last year and his retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in the fall, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei continues to fascinate. A version of his famed Sunflower Seeds, this one made of one ton of handmade porcelain sunflower seeds, brought $782,500. It had been expected to sell for $600,000 to $800,000. Last year Sotheby’s in London sold one of an edition of 10 works, each composed of 100,000 seeds, for $559,394, or about $5.60 a seed.
After the sale, Peter Brant, the Connecticut newsprint magnate and collector, summed up the evening when he said, “Where the quality was good it was particularly strong.”
It was the second of three consecutive evening contemporary art auctions in New York. And although the Sotheby’s sale was a more sober affair than the one at Christie’s on Tuesday, both showed that collectors from all over the world continue to be drawn to parking their cash in art they can enjoy, particularly when it is universally recognizable.
“Great icons make great prices,” Tobias Meyer, director of Sotheby’s contemporary art department worldwide and the evening’s auctioneer, said after the sale. He added, “The market is more global than ever before,” pointing out that the five bidders for Lichtenstein’s “Sleeping Girl,” from 1964, came from China, North and South America and Europe. The price paid by the winner — an unidentified telephone bidder — was a record for the artist, beating last year’s record of $43.2 million set at Christie’s in November.
While record prices were set for other artists, too, including Cy Twombly, Glenn Ligon and Ai Weiwei, the sale did not eclipse Christie’s Tuesday blockbuster, which set a record for the highest total for a contemporary art sale, $388.5 million. Sotheby’s auction totaled $266.6 million, in the middle of its estimate of $215.6 million to $303.9 million. Of the 57 works on offer, 11 failed to sell.
While the Christie’s auction was steeped in work by Abstract Expressionist painters like Rothko, whose 1961 canvas “Orange, Red, Yellow” sold for nearly $87 million — a record for any contemporary artwork at auction — the Sotheby’s sale had a different emphasis, with several top examples of Pop Art.
Besides the Lichtenstein, there were also a number of Warhols, including “Double Elvis (Ferus Type),” a 1963 image of the singer when he was 28, which was expected to bring $30 million to $50 million. It attracted two bidders, and sold to José Mugrabi, the New York dealer, for $33 million, or $37 million including Sotheby’s commission. (Final prices include the buyer’s commission to Sotheby’s: 25 percent of the first $50,000; 20 percent of the next $50,000 to $1 million and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)
Warhol’s “Ten-Foot Flowers,” executed in 1967-68, was painted on a canvas that measured nearly 100 square feet and made for a museum. It was estimated at $9 million to $12 million and sold to a telephone buyer for $9.5 million, or $10.7 million with fees.
When a good Francis Bacon comes up for sale, collectors jump. “Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror,” a 1976 canvas depicting a male figure thought to be the artist’s lover George Dyer, was the other top seller at $44.8 million, over its high estimate of $40 million.
There were five tenacious bidders wanting to bring the painting home and it ended up selling to Charles Moffett, Sotheby’s executive vice president and vice chairman of its worldwide Impressionist, modern and contemporary art department, who was bidding for a mystery client. (Mr. Moffett took the record-breaking winning bid of $119.9 million for Munch’s “The Scream” just a week ago.)
A later and smaller Bacon, “Study for a Portrait” from 1978, was snapped up by Donald L. Bryant, the New York collector, who was sitting in the front row. It had been estimated to bring $4 million to $6 million, and Mr. Bryant paid $3.75 million, or $4.2 million with fees. “I was happy to get it at that price,” he said.
There appears to be an endless appetite for high-end abstract paintings. A classic 1970 blackboard painting by Twombly, “Untitled (New York City),” covered in rolling sweeps of white scrawl, was expected to reach $15 million to $20 million. It sold to Stavaros Merjos, a Los Angeles collector, for $15.5 million, or $17.4 million with fees, just above its low estimate but nevertheless a record for the artist at auction.
Paintings by Gerhard Richter, 80, continue to bring top prices. One of his abstract compositions of fiery reds, from 1992, sold to a phone bidder for $15 million, or $16.8 million with fees, well above its high $10 million estimate.
Between his virtual house arrest over the last year and his retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in the fall, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei continues to fascinate. A version of his famed Sunflower Seeds, this one made of one ton of handmade porcelain sunflower seeds, brought $782,500. It had been expected to sell for $600,000 to $800,000. Last year Sotheby’s in London sold one of an edition of 10 works, each composed of 100,000 seeds, for $559,394, or about $5.60 a seed.
After the sale, Peter Brant, the Connecticut newsprint magnate and collector, summed up the evening when he said, “Where the quality was good it was particularly strong.”
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