art auction

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Mystery Buyer Spends Small Fortune on Cat Painting

All 42 cats in the painting are Persians and Angoras

(Newser) - There are cat enthusiasts and crazy cat ladies, and San Francisco art collector Kate Birdsall Johnson definitely liked her cats. The millionaire is said to have had some 350 felines at her 3,000-acre summer residence/cat ranch in Buena Vista, Calif., and invited artist Carl Kahler to do a portrait...

This Picasso Has Smashed a Huge Record

'Women of Algiers' fetches nearly $180M, most expensive work sold at auction

(Newser) - The world record price for a work of art sold at auction went up by nearly $40 million when Pablo Picasso's Women of Algiers (Version O) sold for an amazing $179.4 million last night. The 1955 painting—described by the BBC as a "vibrant, cubist depiction of...

Warhol Bidding Is Behind 2014's $16B in Art Sales

Collectors paid more than $650M for Andy Warhol works alone

(Newser) - As it stands, the estimated $16 billion in art sales in 2014 is the second-highest in history, close on the heels of the $16.3 billion record set in 2011. And a sizable chunk is attributed to fierce competition among billionaires for works by Andy Warhol, 1,295 of which...

Historian Watching Movie Spots Long-Lost Painting

'Sleeping Lady with Black Vase' was last seen in 1928, bought for $500

(Newser) - Hungarian art historian Gergely Barki was watching Stuart Little with his young daughter five Christmases ago when he noticed a painting above the mantelpiece in the film—and did a double-take. It looked just like "Sleeping Lady with Black Vase," a painting by Hungarian artist Robert Bereny that...

Hitler Painting Sells for $162K
 Hitler Painting Sells for $162K 

Hitler Painting Sells for $162K

Watercolor goes for 3 times as much as expected

(Newser) - The work of one of Europe's most infamous onetime struggling artists sold for $162,000 at auction yesterday, nearly three times its expected sales price . The watercolor depicting Munich's old city hall is rather unremarkable but for the "A. Hitler" signature on the bottom left; it's...

Set for Auction: Painting by Adolf Hitler

Town hall image could bring in $60K: auctioneer

(Newser) - A painting set for auction in Germany could bring in more than $60,000, though its artist isn't best known for his abilities with a brush. Adolf Hitler produced some 2,000 paintings between 1905 and 1920; he painted the "Civil Registry Office and Old Town Hall of...

$46M Norman Rockwell Work Shatters Record

Sells for $46M, well above estimate of up to $20M

(Newser) - A Norman Rockwell painting titled "Saying Grace" sold at an auction yesterday for $46 million, a record for the Saturday Evening Post illustrator and for any work sold at an American art auction, Sotheby's said. Two people on the telephone bid against each other for nine minutes before...

Art Auctions Are Just Money Laundering
 Art Auctions Are Just 
 Money Laundering 
OPINION

Art Auctions Are Just Money Laundering

Michael Wolff sees something sinister behind ever-rising prices for fine art

(Newser) - High art's auction seasons have become celebrated events, and "most of the hyperventilating commentary has been about the exhilaration" of the soaring prices works are fetching—just last week Christie's set a new record . What hardly anyone's talking about is just how sketchy all this is,...

After 6 Frenzied Minutes, Art Sale Record Smashed

Bacon triptych fetches $142.5M as balloon dog pops another record

(Newser) - The world's super-rich toppled plenty of records at a Christie's art auction in New York City last night—including the record for most expensive auction, which now stands at $691.5 million. A big chunk of that came from a single painting, a 1969 Francis Bacon triptych of...

Banksy Graffiti Taken Off Wall, Sold For $1.1M

Critics say 'Slave Labour' belongs to the community

(Newser) - A Banksy mural taken from a wall in north London was sold for over $1.1 million at a private auction last night. The piece, "Slave Labour," of a young boy sewing Union Jack flags, was sprayed onto the side of a store in 2012. It was removed...

Sotheby's Sets Record Thanks to $75M Rothko

$375M total for contemporary-art auction is biggest in house's history

(Newser) - What is it about Rothko that drives auction-goers wild ? One of the painter's works went for $75 million at a contemporary-art auction yesterday, helping make the evening's total haul—$375 million—a record-setter in the category for Sotheby's, reports the Wall Street Journal . A multinational group...

Woman Finds Renoir Original at Flea Market

Painting could sell for up to $100K later this month

(Newser) - The flea market box lot was less than $50, and the buyer picked it up mostly for the Paul Bunyan doll it contained. But it turns out the box lot also contained an original painting by Renoir that could fetch up to $100,000 in an auction at the end...

Art World About to Be Swimming in Warhols

Warhol foundation to auction off 20K works

(Newser) - We've got bad news for art collectors who've invested heavily in screen prints of soup cans: Their value might be about to plummet, because Andy Warhol's estate is selling out. The Andy Warhol Foundation is dumping its entire collection—more than 20,000 works—in a move...

$10 Goodwill Buy: $15K Painting

 $10 Goodwill Buy: 
 $15K Painting 
in case you missed it

$10 Goodwill Buy: $15K Painting

Sotheby's to auction Ilya Bolotowsky work

(Newser) - During a visit to Goodwill, a North Carolina artist spotted two large abstract paintings selling for $10 each. That's a quarter of the price a brand new canvas would have cost Beth Feeback, and she figured she could easily paint over them with her subject of choice—cats with...

Mystery Scream Buyer Revealed

Financier Leon Black paid $120M for Munch masterwork

(Newser) - The mystery buyer who paid a record-breaking $120 million for Edvard Munch's The Scream is New York City financier Leon Black, according to the Wall Street Journal , which says "several people close to the collector" have confirmed the buy. The billionaire chief of investment firm Apollo Global Management...

Modern Art Fever: Basquiat Fetches $16.3M

It's a record price for the artist

(Newser) - Well, it's no $120 million , but a Jean Michel Basquiat painting made a splash at an auction last night at Phillips de Pury & Company, selling for a whopping $16.3 million—an all-time high for the neo-expressionist. Coming just two days after a record-setting Christie's auction , the...

Warhol's Double Elvis Sells for $37M

Lichtenstein's 'Sleeping Girl' brings in $45M

(Newser) - Another strong day for Sotheby's, though maybe not on the scale of the The Scream :
  • Andy Warhol's silkscreen Double Elvis sold for $37 million. One of 22 made by Warhol, it's based on a movie still and shows Elvis as a gun-toting cowboy, notes the Guardian .
  • Roy
...

Modern Art Auction Shatters Records

Rothko painting stars with $86.9M final price

(Newser) - The modern art market is boiling hot right now. For evidence, take a gander at the results from last night's Christie's auction, which saw a Mark Rothko painting sell for nearly $87 million, shattering the gallery's $35 million to $40 million estimate. The sale is a record...

5 Priciest Artworks Ever Auctioned

Pablo Picasso makes 2 appearances

(Newser) - Following the record-breaking sale of Edvard Munch's The Scream , the Guardian takes a look at the other biggest sales of art at auction. The top five:
  1. Edvard Munch, The Scream, $119.9 million.
  2. Pablo Picasso, Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust, $106.5 million.
  3. Alberto Giacometti, L'homme qui Marche
...

Scream May Fetch $200M
 The Scream May Fetch $200M 

The Scream May Fetch $200M

Oddsmakers expect icon to bust records

(Newser) - One of the most recognizable painting in human history is now expected to fetch up to $200 million—well beyond Sotheby's early $80 million estimate —when it goes on the auction block this week. British oddsmakers are betting a Russian is most likely to scoop up Edvard Munch'...

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