Picasso and Giacometti Artworks Top $120 Million Each at Christie’s Sale
Source: NYT
To a medley of whoops, hollers and gasps on Monday night, Pablo Picassos 1955 painting Les Femmes dAlger (Version O) sold for $179.4 million including fees at Christies Looking Forward to the Past sale of artworks spanning the 20th century. The price was the highest on record for a work of art sold at auction, the company said, and was well over its estimate of $140 million.
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Picassos Les Femmes dAlger (Version O) is the most opulent and imposing of a series of paintings that the Spanish-born artist produced from 1954 to 1955 in response to Eugène Delacroixs 1834 Orientalist masterpiece, Women of Algiers. It had last been on the market in November 1997, when it sold for $31.9 million at a Christies auction of works owned by the American collectors, Victor and Sally Ganz. It was bought at that auction by a Saudi collector and kept in a house in London, said two dealers with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be named because of concerns over confidentiality. Monday nights seller, who was not identified, had been guaranteed a minimum price by Christies, which estimated the work would fetch about $140 million.
The Swiss-born sculptor Giacometti is renowned for his hauntingly emaciated figures made in postwar Paris when Europe was in the grip of Existentialist angst. He became one of the art markets ultimate trophy names in February 2010 after the billionaire Lily Safra paid 65 million pounds (then $103.4 million) for the 1961 bronze, Walking Man I, at a Sothebys auction in London.
Pointing Man, an earlier, hand-painted bronze from 1947-51, is regarded by many as more compelling. Made in an edition of six, plus an artists proof, it had been acquired from the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York in 1970. Christies anonymous seller has been identified as the New York real estate magnate Sheldon Solow, according to artinfo.com. The Giacometti had been estimated to sell for $130 million and did not carry any financial guarantees. A less obviously commercial lot than the Picasso, it attracted just two telephone bidders.
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