Let’s say you have $40 million to spend at Christies, just for fun. Last Tuesday, they set a record for the auction house when they sold $857 million worth of art in one evening. Among the big winners that night were these three record-setting graphic works by Ed Rusha ($30,405,000), Roy Lichtenstein ($2,741,000) and Christopher Wool ($6,997,000) which add up to roughly $40 million. But, if you’d rather have a sweet apartment (another good place to plop $40 mill) this penthouse in the West Village, one of Richard Meier’s masterful designs, is being offered by Christie's Real Estate for the first time since its completion. The duplex is 4,550-square-feet, with four-bedrooms, four-baths and dramatic 21-foot ceilings with an 1,800 square foot terrace and spectacular views of the Hudson River (and my own front door a few blocks away.) You don’t have a LOT of wall space but there’s enough for these three works, so if you’ve got another $40 mill, you can have it all. And If You Don't Like It You Can Get The Fuck Out Of My House.
Christopher Wool
FALL ART AUCTION HIGHLIGHTS: ELVIS, MARLON, INKJET, SCRIBBLES & $100 MILLION CHARIOT
Christie’s & Sotheby’s (and to a somewhat lesser degree, Phillips) auction houses are offering some 2,300 lots during two weeks of sales of Impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art. The total is expected to top the $1.8 billion total from last November’s auction but might not hit the $2.2 billion record set in May 2014.
A bronze “chariot” sculpture byAlberto Giacometti from ’51-’52 has been in the same private collection for more than forty years is valued at more than $100 million at Sotheby’s. It’s not a stretch since a Giacometti’s went for $103.4 million in 2010.
Sotheby’s has Van Gogh’s 1890 “Still Life, Vase With Daisies and Poppies” valued at $30-$50 millionwhich has been on view for the past 30 years at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. Edouard Manet’s “Le Printemps,” at Christie’s, estimated at $25-35 million, has also been in the same collection for more than 25 years and on on loan to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
Wade Guyton is a fairly new entry into the “evening auction pantheon”. His untitled inkjet painting from just 8 years ago is estimated at $4-6 million. His work came to auction first six years ago, when an untitled inkjet painting sold for $72,500 at Christie’s.
On November 10, Sotheby’s hosts a single sale of oil heiress and philanthropist Bunny Mellon’s art collection, and two paintings by Mark Rothko are estimated to sell for as much as $20-30 million, respectively.
Christie’s November 12 evening auction, among MANY offerings, has two major paintings by Warhol – a 1963 triple screen print of Elvis Presley and a 1966 black and white screen print of Brando on a motorcycle, “Four Marlons.”. Each is more than 6-feet tall and estimated at$60+ million. Francis Bacon’s huge 1960 canvas, part of his series of Papal portraits, is estimated to sell for$40-60 million. Get out your VISA Black Cards, kids.