The fall auction season in New York has gotten off to a good start, even if last year’s record seemed unbeatable. A Picasso painting titled “Femme à la montre” fetched $139 million (129 million euros) on Wednesday evening, becoming the artist’s second most valuable work sold at auction. The 1932 oil painting was the protagonist of the sale of the private collection of the philanthropist Emily Fisher Landau, which is taking place on two consecutive days at the Sotheby’s home in New York. The painting depicts Marie-Thérèse Walter, the Málaga artist’s lover and muse, who is depicted in many of his works.
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Fisher Landau died earlier this year at the age of 102, leaving behind a stunning 120-piece collection of modern and contemporary art, including works by Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning and Georgia O’Keeffe. According to the auction house, the auction price of the set may exceed $400 million. Along with the Picasso, the first bid sold one of Jasper Johns’ iconic paintings of the American flag, which fetched $41 million, and an oil painting by Ed Ruscha of the word “Boss” for $39.4 million.
Picasso regularly participates in major New York auctions, but this year, the anniversary of his death, his legacy is felt even more strongly. The painting belongs to one of the most productive years in the Spanish artist’s career. “Picasso’s Femme à la montre is a masterpiece no matter how you look at it. Painted in 1932 – during the artist’s Annus Mirabilis – it is full of joy and passion, but at the same time utterly thoughtful and determined. Its bold primary colors sing on a five-foot-tall canvas,” said Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s head of Impressionist and Modern Art for America, at the press launch. The year mentioned above, also known as the artist’s erotic year, was so important for Picasso’s career that in 2018 a monographic exhibition was dedicated to him, organized by the Tate Modern in London.
Last year, Picasso’s strangest painting of Walter, in which she appears as a sea creature with tentacles, sold for $67.5 million, also at Sotheby’s New York headquarters. The record achieved by a Picasso was set in 2015 with Version O of Les femmes d’Alger, which sold at Christie’s for $179.4 million, the highest price paid for a work of art at auction at the time.
The oil painting “Boss” by Ed Ruscha in the pre-auction exhibition at Sotheby’s headquarters in New York.Julian Cassady Photography Alive Coverage (Julian Cassady Photography / Ali)
In the seven-floor rooms of Sotheby’s headquarters on New York’s exclusive Upper East Side, you could hear a lot of Spanish from America these days; The offering of numerous boteros (several of his recognizable sculptures and some large oil paintings) and a large selection of works by Latin American artists, as well as countless drawings by Picasso, attracted the attention of an increasingly thriving segment of the international clientele in the auctions. There were also Asians who monopolized the art market after the Russians withdrew due to sanctions and the war in Ukraine. An entire room dedicated to the Impressionists rounded off the tour of the works.
Fisher Landau’s beginnings as a collector date back to collecting insurance following an armed robbery at her New York home in 1969. The philanthropist described this incident as the turning point that diverted her attention from her collection of stolen jewelry. Toward painting. “Although Lloyd’s of London [compañía aseguradora] paid, there was no way to replace the collection. She was so beautiful. And they took her away in one fell swoop… I was devastated. But I decided I didn’t want jewelry anymore. “Now I had the starting capital to start an art collection,” the woman explained in an interview included in the Sotheby’s catalog.
The Ferrari 250 GTO, which will be auctioned by Sotheby’s on November 13th.
Sotheby’s fall season includes eight auctions, starting with the two-day sale of the Fisher Landau Collection. Until November 16, the house will sell, among other things, a collection of modern art with a wonderful and dreamlike Chagall as the main course next Monday and an evening dedicated to contemporary art with a self-portrait by Basquiat with a starting price of 40 million dollars. In addition to paintings and sculptures, the auction will also include a sale of a unique lot of a 1962 Ferrari GTO, which, with an estimate of over $60 million, could become the most valuable Ferrari ever sold at auction.
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