$20-30 million), and the latter and sinisterly darker “No.6/Sienna, Orange on Wine” from 1962, which realized $17,610,000 (est.
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Taubman passed away in April at 91. There are three additional stand-alone sales of the collection.
With about 90 percent sold, the auction netted $377 million before premiums, according to Sotheby’s. The “Masterworks” sale is the first of four Taubman auctions, the proceeds of which will pay taxes and form a foundation, set to occur semi-annually.
The centerpiece in the Wednesday sale was the 1919 portrait “Paulette Jordan” by Italian libertine Amedeo Modigliani.
Georgia O’Keeffe’s floral “Pink and Green (Pink Pastelle) fetched $2.5 million, well above a high estimate of $1.8 million”. The results include buyers’ commission charged by the auction house; the estimates don’t. To promote the sale, Sotheby’s sent the highlights to Hong Kong and London, organized dinners for clients and consigners and designed special catalogs.
Among those in attendance were Italian fashion designer Valentino and Taubman’s family. Champagne and blinis with black caviar were served to guests while staffers were decked out in tuxedos and cocktail dresses.
“They were in a tough spot”, said Janis Gardner Cecil, director at Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art gallery in Manhattan.
What does Mr. Taubman’s sale portend for the art market overall?
Dealers said the estimates were too high for the quality of the material and as a result many works fell short of their low presale estimates. Mr. Taubman’s holdings included pieces he bought-at Sotheby’s, of course-in recent years, so they were not super fresh to the marketplace, said dealer Richard Feigen after the sale. “It was a nice collection but it’s not legendary”.
The son of Polish immigrants, he made a fortune by developing and building shopping malls.
Taubman was convicted in a New York federal courtroom of colluding with a counterpart at Christie’s in a conspiracy that United States prosecutors stated cheated clients out of $a hundred million. He spent nine months in prison.
Sotheby’s had valued the oil portray, “Femme assise sur une chaise”, at $25 to $35 million earlier than Wednesday’s public sale.
Van Gogh’s “Landscape Under a Stormy Sky”, depicting a field in Arles in the south of France, that could bring $50 million to $70 million, is described by David Norman, co-chairman of Impressionist and Modern Art at Sotheby’s, in New York, Friday, October 30, 2015.
The most costly heaps this season are a luxurious nude by Modigliani valued at $a hundred million, and a pop artwork masterpiece from Roy Lichtenstein estimated at $eighty million, each to go underneath the hammer at Christie’s.
Other high performers were classic American paintings including a signature Winslow Homer, “In Charge of Baby”, painted during the important period when the artist resided in seaside Gloucester. The current van Gogh auction record is $82.5 million.
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Frank Stella garnered an auction record price for his red abstract, “Delaware Crossing”, at $13.7 million. Sotheby’s opens the fall art auction season on Wednesday with… “We are already getting offers”. Both were estimated to sell for at least $20 million.
