Post: #1

A Picasso painting breaks record for most expensive artwork sold at auction:

Quote:A painting by Pablo Picasso has set a new world record for the most expensive artwork to be sold at auction after reaching $179m (£115m) in New York.

Women of Algiers (Version O) had been expected to exceed $140m before the auction but the final price far exceeded those estimates in a sale at Christie’s auction house at a time when collectors’ appetite for masterpieces of impressionist, modern and contemporary art is increasing.

On Monday night, several bidders competing via telephone drove the winning bid to $160m, for a final price of $179,365,000 including Christie’s commission of just over 12%.

Previously the most expensive work sold at auction was Francis Bacon’s triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which sold for $142.4m at Christie’s in November 2013.

Experts say the prices are driven by artworks’ investment value and by wealthy new and established collectors seeking out the very best works.

“I don’t really see an end to it, unless interest rates drop sharply, which I don’t see happening in the near future,” Manhattan dealer Richard Feigen said.

Picasso’s work is a vibrant, multi-hued painting featuring a scantily attired woman amid smaller nudes. The evening sale also featured Alberto Giacometti’s life-size sculpture Pointing Man which reached estimated $141.3m, earning it the title of most expensive sculpture sold at auction.

Impressionist and modern artworks continue to corner the market because “they are beautiful, accessible and a proven value,” said Sarah Lichtman, a professor of design history and curatorial studies at the New School. “Prices for works from these periods only seem to go up each auction cycle and the reputations of the artists become further enshrined,” she said. “Today the works epitomise the conservative, moneyed establishment.”

Women of Algiers, once owned by the American collectors Victor and Sally Ganz, was inspired by Picasso’s fascination with the 19th-century French artist Eugène Delacroix. It is part of a 15-work series Picasso created in 1954-1955 designated with the letters A to O. It has appeared in several major museum retrospectives of the artist.

Overall, 34 of 35 lots sold at Monday’s auction for a total of $706 million.

Wrapping my mind around paying such an exhorbitant sum for artwork is beyond my meager comprehension.

Here is a link to the 10 most expensive paintings ever sold. Apparently, Gauguin's When Will You Marry has fetched the highest price on the market:



I don't know much about art dealing, but this sort of exchange sounds extraordinary to me. Here is the Guardian's explanation:

Quote:Pablo Picasso’s 1955 painting Les Femmes d’Alger (Version O) is such a remarkable and important masterpiece that it could maintain the world record auction price for at least a decade, the auctioneer who sold it has predicted.

There were whoops and whistles in the New York saleroom of Christie’s on Monday evening after Jussi Pylkkänen put down his gavel at $160m. Including commission that means it sold for $179, 365,000 (£115m), easily beating the previous record of $142m for a Francis Bacon triptych.

It had been a dramatic 11 and half minutes in the Rockefeller Center auction room. At $151m Pylkkänen remarked: “We’re in new territory.” At $160m he declared: “Brett, it’s yours. Sold.”

The Brett in question was Brett Gorvey, the South African-born Briton who is Christie’s New York-based international head of postwar and contemporary art. He was bidding on behalf of an unknown and clearly stupendously rich buyer.

Pylkkänen said afterwards that it was no surprise that such a work, by “the Mozart of 20th-century painting”, should sell for a world record price. “It will be fascinating to see for how long this Picasso will hold the world record,” he said. “It could be a decade. It could be longer than that. We really have witnessed a piece of not just art history, but cultural history at Christie’s.”

The price is staggering in a way, double the annual income of, for example, the entire National Gallery. But it was not a surprise to the auction house.

Before the sale Christie’s deputy chairman, Olivier Camu, explained to the Guardian the rationale for giving it one of the highest estimates in auction history.

“It is a sort of Gesamtkunstwerk and the more you read and look at it and think about it, the more you discover.

“It is just amazing, it is extraordinary and so the estimate follows naturally from that. $140m? Why not?”

In Camu’s opinion, there were few Picassos which had a comparable importance. There is Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the 1907 Cubist painting that fundamentally changed art and is a star attraction in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and there is Guernica, his vast Spanish civil war history painting which is in the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid.

“This is the most important Picasso after the war,” said Camu.

One reason for that is because it is so full of art historical references. There is perspective in one half, with homage to Delacroix and Velazquez, and on the left hand side there is Cubism, his muse Jacqueline Roque and references to his great friend and competitor Matisse, whose death in 1954 inspired him to make the painting in the first place.

The Picasso was one of 10 record breakers on Monday night. They included Giacometti’s life size L’Homme au Doigt (Pointing Man) which set a new record price for a sculpture when it sold for $141.3m (£90.7m); and a canoe painting by the British artist Peter Doig which sold for a record $26m (£16.6m). Other artist records were achieved for Robert Delaunay, Cady Noland, Jean Dubuffet, Diane Arbus, Jean-Michel Basquiat, René Magritte and Chaim Soutine.

In total the Monday night sale on the Avenue of the Americas brought in $705.9m.

The boiling art market is being driven by a growing number of extraordinarily rich buyers who can contemplate spending more than $100m on a work of art.

Pylkkänen said: “We have entered a new era of the art market where collectors from all parts of the world compete for the very best across categories, generating record prices at levels we have never seen before.”

The buyers are convinced of the sound investment value of the works and the prices are encouraging owners of premium works that now is the time to sell. One dealer, Richard Feigen, said: “I don’t really see an end to it, unless interest rates drop sharply, which I don’t see happening in the near future.”

Sarah Lichtman, a professor of design history and curatorial studies at The New School, agreed. “I think we will continue to see the financiers seeking these works out as they would a blue-chip company that pays reliable dividends for years to come,” she said.

The prices are also being stoked by a rising number of super-rich Chinese buyers. Last week it was revealed that the buyer at Sotheby’s of Picasso’s Femme au Chignon dans un Fauteuil ($29.9m), which belonged to Hollywood film mogul Samuel Goldwyn Sr, was Chinese film mogul Wang Zhongjun, chairman and co-founder of Huayi Brothers media group.

The buyer of Monet’s Le Bassin aux Nymphéas, les Rosiers for $20.41m, meanwhile, was China’s Dalian Wanda Group.

Post: #2

Art has appreciated at monumental rates over the last 10 years.

The same can be said for classic cars, with classic Bentleys appreciating 500% or so in the last ten years.

Unlike cars, however, art can be stored in any country in the world without penalty (classic cars are illegal still in China, for instance) which explains its meteoric rise in value.

There are a lot more rich people in the World than there have ever been before and a limited number of desirable, old objects.

Supply and demand at work.


It's still all mental though.

Post: #3

Is it not just a sign of the times and the economic cycle. The prices achieved for "barn find" classic cars at auction has been record breaking also.
I remember similar news at the end of the 1980s.

Post: #4

An obscene amount of money, but I have to admit it's a great piece of art. Colors look better here:



But who spends $86,000,000 on this piece of shit:



I think a good metric for art is: "Would it lose virtually all it's value without the name?" While that is true for most paintings, there's a difference between highly technical pieces and bullshit post-modern pieces. Even a monkey can throw paint at a canvass, but very few people can paint proper portraits and landscapes.

Post: #5

Come to show you at what level the 0,1% live. $179 Million for one piece of art. Absolutely amazing.

Picasso was a Genius though. He´s worth it. Guernica is probably my favorite Modern Art painting.



He was quite a Player too.

Post: #6

WB. Would Buy.

Post: #7

How is art valued? These prices seem extraordinarily obscene.

Post: #8

(05-13-2015 05:27 AM)Vronsky Wrote:  How is art valued? These prices seem extraordinarily obscene.

Steve Sailer makes the case that the nonstop rise is driven by tax breaks for continual investing in art:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/why-billionair...paintings/

Quote:One piece of the puzzle, apparently, is a lucrative tax break on federal capital gains taxes if you roll your winnings on buying a painting over into buying other paintings. You can evade paying capital gains taxes for the rest of your life if you keep buying more paintings. But if your first score was a painting, you have to keep buying paintings.

The incentives make it a big shell game for locking money away out of the government's reach.

Quote:So this means the art (painting) bubble stays permanently inflated (at least until a catastrophic popping), because rich guys who made money in paintings in the past have to keep plowing their winnings back into buying more paintings, or they’ll have to write a big check to the IRS. They can’t reinvest their capital gains into baseball cards or dinosaur fossils or, God forbid, a factory.

They just have to keep playing the painting game. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

Of course, this leads to the less well-off copying the how without considering the why, pushing the prices up across the board.

"I'd hate myself if I had that kind of attitude, if I were that weak." - Arnold

Post: #9

Picasso's "Women Of Algiers" is back in the news again, with it's late owner -- A. Alfred Taubman -- art collection going on sale this winter:

Quote:The massive art collection of the late shopping mall billionaire A. Alfred Taubman features more than 500 works including valuable paintings by De Kooning, Modigliani and Gainsborough. Starting in November, the collection will be sold off by the very auction house that Taubman once ran.

Sotheby's announced on Friday that it will sell Taubman's private collection in a series of four dedicated auctions in New York that will take place November to January. The auction house said that it has valued the collection in excess of $500 million, "making it the most valuable private collection ever offered at auction."

The $500-million-plus estimate would surpass the record-breaking $477 million that arch-rival Christie's saw with the Yves Saint Laurent collection in 2009.

As the head of Sotheby's, beginning in 1983, Taubman was key in reversing the auction house's ailing fortunes, and helped take the company public. But he also served jail time, starting in 2002, following a price-fixing scandal that rocked the auction industry.

As a real-estate magnate, Taubman made his fortune in large part from developing high-end shopping malls through his company, Taubman Centers. The Beverly Center in Beverly Hills and the Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey were among his crown jewel properties.

Among the notable works to be auctioned off are a 1976 De Kooning canvas, "Untitled XXI," which Sotheby's estimates will go for $25 million to $35 million. A Modigliani painting from around 1919 titled "Portrait de Paulette Jourdain" is estimated in the same range.

An 18th century Gainsborough portrait titled "The Blue Page" is estimated to sell between $3 million and $4 million.

Sotheby's said proceeds from the sale will be used to settle estate tax obligations and fund the A. Alfred Taubman Foundation, a philanthropic organization.

In 2002, Taubman was sentenced to jail after being convicted for his role in a price-fixing scheme as the head of Sotheby's. The auction house was found to have colluded with Christie's to raise the commissions paid by sellers.

Taubman, who served several months in prison, left Sotheby's in 2005. His son, Robert S. Taubman, sits on the company's board of directors.

For Sotheby's, the consignment of its late owner's art collection would seem like a slam dunk. But the New York Times reported Thursday that Sotheby's had to compete with Christie's for the sale.

"It was very, very close," Christopher Tennyson, a Taubman family spokesman, told the newspaper.

A $500 million art collection. Jesus.

Post: #10

Trying to make rational sense of art prices is a hopeless quest.

There is no sense. It's just whatever the market will bear.

Post: #11

The painting with the second highest known prices paid is The Card Players by Paul Cézanne. This one I can understand.

The Card Players by Cezanne

Post: #12

Fucking hell, with the quality of those paintings you may aswell hang an expensive gold plated terd on your wall. I'm amazed what people spend money on. It's like some rare video games that are horribly crap going for $20,000.. and that's nowhere near $179mil.

Post: #13

Not to sound so crude and unintelligent by why on earth would people pay so goddamn much for a painting ?

Post: #14

If you have billions of dollars there's really not much more to do, you have everything, so you buy something that there's only one of, that was created by hand, formed in someones mind. I'd do the same if I was a billionaire. But then again, my lady is an artist and I've grown to appreciate what actually goes into it, and that its not really about what the shapes, forms and figures look like from a logical/objective/technical point of view- it's something the artist needs to do, its a feeling or a moment they're trying to capture or convey or let out.

Quote:Fucking hell, with the quality of those paintings you may aswell hang an expensive gold plated terd on your wall.

You sir, are a very very.....

not worth it

Post: #15

Emperor's new clothes indeed.

Post: #16

(09-11-2015 01:08 AM)kaotic Wrote:  Not to sound so crude and unintelligent by why on earth would people pay so goddamn much for a painting ?

At a certain level of wealth money has diminishing returns. There's only so many houses you want to buy, planes, yachts, fancy restaurants etc..

Guys who are billionaires and loaded as fuck won't think anything about dropping 20 million dollars for some ming vase or a hundred million something plus for a painting. It's just figures to them. It's not even really a significant blip on their expense report. A guy who has billions is earning so much money every year in interest, business income, etc.. that it's literally unlimited money to spend in a lifetime.

Post: #17

The only reason it sold for that much is easy QE slush cash flowing between the uber rich.

What a better way to lock in gains without getting taxed. This is nothing more than the hot to trot showing off.

Someone said it best in another thread, the US recovery has been nothing more than accounting fraud. A late stage roman empire.

Post: #18

Stop thinking of these paintings as works of art and start thinking of them as speculative stocks and it begins to make sense. Do any of these guys like art? Maybe a little. But that's not the appeal. The appeal is twofold: 1) Being able to peacock your wealth to an absurd degree by pointing to a piece of canvas and saying, "I paid $100+ million for that," and 2) Getting on the art bubble bandwagon and hopefully being able to sell the painting for even more money in a few years.

No one ever looked at any painting and though, "You know, objectively, I believe this painting is valued in the nine figures." These paintings are no different than stocks with exorbitant P/Es and zero earnings. They're bought purely for speculative reasons in anticipation of finding a greater fool to sell to down the line.

Post: #19

This is what happens when you're rich enough to have everything in the world that you think you want, and then you start collecting and hoarding all kinds of other useless shit. Why? Why not! Because you're so fucking rich you can!

I'd rather spend my money on something that was going to bring me happiness. Like a trip or an experience, but maybe that's just me. Hell, if I was that rich I'd be taking trips up to space to take a piss all over Syria and the middle east.

Post: #20

Post: #21

With the stock market in turmoil people look to put their money into other investments.

Collectible cars may start going back up again as well. I've seen some insane prices of late.

Post: #22

Art today is just money laundering.

Post: #23

(09-11-2015 10:12 PM)Hygiene Wrote:  Art today is just money laundering.

The guys buying this stuff have no reason to launder money. They are legitimately powerful and filthy rich already. Plus paintings are a bit more unique and traceable.

On the other hand the antiques market is full of cartel type laundering. Even rare historical artifacts can have pretty uncertain origins.

Post: #24

Is there a web site where you can see the best paintings in the world? I like art, but I am cheap, so it has to be free!

Post: #25

(05-13-2015 01:31 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  Art has appreciated at monumental rates over the last 10 years.

The same can be said for classic cars, with classic Bentleys appreciating 500% or so in the last ten years.

Unlike cars, however, art can be stored in any country in the world without penalty (classic cars are illegal still in China, for instance) which explains its meteoric rise in value.

There are a lot more rich people in the World than there have ever been before and a limited number of desirable, old objects.

Supply and demand at work.


It's still all mental though.

Exactly, and this is why art is such a valuable part of culture. How many artists are we cultivating now that will fetch $180 million in another 70 years? No one knows. If we knew that great artists = a percentage of population and it would always be so then we can speculate that art will always go up by an approximate amount.

Its also obviously not all about the art either. Everyone from thieves, galleries, collectors and insurance agencies collect from great art. Not to mention the mystery it has to 99.9% of the population. Which is a shame, as most art remains tucked away in private galleries at best, and in climate controlled warehouse vaults at the worst.

Classic cars are even harder. Who would think to buy a Ford Tourus HSO or a Cadillac CTS-V and sitting on it for 50 years?