ARTS & CULTURE
12 Obiter Dicta
Move over autumn, this month is auction season
A Review of November’s Biggest Sales in the Art World
kathleen killin › arts & culture editor
D
uring the month of November, thousands flock to New York City, are wined
and dined, raise their paddles in the air,
and possibly lose a few zeros from their
bank accounts. The New York sales by Sotheby’s,
Christie’s and Phillips expect more than $2.1 billion (all prices in USD) to be sold in Impressionist,
Modern, Post-War, and Contemporary Art.
SOTHEBYS - $726.7 million in two days &
a $70.5 million Cy Twombly
In the beginning of November, Sotheby’s netted
$726.7 million after two days of sales in Manhattan.
The auctions included their Impressionist and
Modern Evening Sale, as well as two auctions from
the estate of former Sotheby’s chairman A. Alfred
Taubman. A major piece on the block included Pablo
Picasso’s La Gommeuse—painted during the artist’s blue period in 1901—which was sold to Swiss art
dealer Dors Ammann for $67.5 million. The second
highest sum was Vincent Van Gogh’s Paysage which
was sold for $54 million to a telephone bidder.
Sotheby’s sales throughout November continued to remain strong with their “Contemporary and
Post-War Evening Sale” culminating a nearly $300
million total. Leading the evening was an untitled
ê Top: Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu Couché (1917). Photo credit: The New York Times. Bottom: Willem de Kooning, Untitled XXVIII (1977). Photo credit: Phillips. Inset: Cy Twombly,
Untitled (1968). Photo credit: Sothebys
1968 blackboard work by Cy Twombly that sold for
$70.5 million, a record for the artist. Other notable works sold include Andy Warhol’s Mao which
fetched $47.5 million and Jackson Pollock’s Number
17 which sold for $22.9 million.
CHRISTIES - $170 million for a single
piece
The star of Christie’s “Artist’s Muse: A Curated
Even i ng Sale” on Monday 9 November i n
Manhattan—Amedeo Modigliani’s Reclining Nude
or Nu Couché— sold for a staggering $170 million.
Painted between 1917 and 1918, Reclining Nude created a scandal when first exhibited in Paris due to
the nudity of the unknown model. It was bought by
Chinese billionaire, art collector, and former taxi
driver Liu Yiqian; he outbid six others competing
for the canvas. Mr. Liu and his wife, Wang Wei, are
known to have amounted a huge number of artworks
that are showcased in their two private Shanghai
museums. The New York Times reports that Mr. Liu
previously bought a tiny Ming dynasty porcelain
cup at Sotheby’s for $36.3 million and was seen in a
photograph sipping tea from it. It is reported that he
pays for all of his purchases on an American Express
credit card, in order to obtain travel points.
Reclining Nude is the second highest price ever
fetched at auction, with Pablo Picasso’s Women
of Algiers (Version O) setting the record at $179.4
» see auctions, page 20