The Race to Find New Art Collectors

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Kelly Crow

Korean collector Hong-gyu Shin bid on a $142 million Francis Bacon, but lost Nicholas Hunt/Patrick McMullan

In early May, Christie's invited a group of 18 new collectors from China to visit New York. The auction house threw the guests a lavish dinenr at its Rockefellor Center ballroom, escorted them on guided tours through the Museum of Moden Art and arranged VIP tickets to a local art fair. Christie's efforts paid off: During its May 13 contemporary art ales, members of the grip placed bids on at least half the top 10 priciest pieces in what became an historic $745 million auction. [link]

A quarter of all art-auction sales were made to first-time buyers this year. An inside look at Sotheby's and Christie's global quest to identify and recruit them.

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Despite Legal Challenges, Sale of Hopi Religious Artifacts Continues in France

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ton Mashberg

A view of three Hopi masks from Arizona during a Paris auction in December 2013. 

FRANCE---Prompted by another large sale on Friday of American Indian religious items — the fourth such auction in the past 18 months — embassy officials invited an American judge, who is herself a member of the Hopi tribe, to explain to government officials, art dealers, academics and lawyers why treating spiritual objects as commodities is insulting and sacrilegious. The embassy’s efforts did not pay off last week despite two legal challenges to the auction, which included 29 vibrant Hopi spiritual headdresses and masklike items, known as Katsinam, that are treated as living entities by the tribe. [link]

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Indianapolis Episcopal Diocese Raises $425,000 From Auction of Rare Painting

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

INDIANA---A religious artwork long held by the Indianapolis Museum of Art and returned last year to the Episcopal Diocese sold for $425,000 at Christie's Old Masters sale in NYC on June 4. The painting of the Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist was identified by Ginger Bievenour, vice chair of Alpha & Omega Project for Contemporary Religious Arts as a rare work by Francesco Botticini (Florence 1446/7-1498). "In his mature career," according to Christies, "Botticini enjoyed tremendous popularity as a painter of private devotional images, such as the present example, which treats a theme to which the artist returned on several occasions." The painting was gifted to the Diocese of Indianapolis in 1968, and the sale will benefit the mission's program.

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Former Buddhist Art Collection of Baron Antoine Allard, the "Red Baron", to be Offered at Sotheby's

ARTDAILY

A fine and rare large gilt-bronze figure of Buddha Shakyamuni

FRANCE---Almost 400 works of art from China, Tibet, Nepal and Japan will be offered in the Sotheby's Asian Art Sale in Paris on June 10th 2014. Many of the pieces come from private European collections and have never been offered on the market before. They comprise fine Chinese ceramics, jades and scholar's objects as well as Tibetan and Nepalese religious paintings and sculpture, and Japanese lacquerwork. Asian works of art formerly in the collection of Baron Antoine Allard (1907 - 1981). [link]

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Monday's Madonna & Child from 16th Century at Auction

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Scott Reyburn

Detail of The 16th-century German painting ‘‘Virgin and Child on a grassy bank.’’ Credit Sotheby’s

UNITED KINGDOM---Up until the 1980s, paintings by canonical figures such as Rembrandt, Rubens and Velázquez were the main income-generators for Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Since then, they’ve fallen out of fashion with wealthy collectors, who increasingly want to buy instantly recognizable works by “brand” artists rather than connoisseurs’ paintings whose authorship might be open to question. Now 20th- and 21st-century art, and even Chinese antiques, are more lucrative categories for the salerooms. Last year, worldwide auctions of Old Master paintings raised 1 billion euros, or about $1.4 billion. Unlike the supercharged market for contemporary art, auction sales of Old Masters have actually contracted; in 2011, they stood at €1.4 billion. [link]

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Catholic League Mocks Sotheby's Auction of ‘Piss Christ’ by Andres Serrano

THE DAILY CALLER
By Rachel Stoltzfoos

"Piss Christ" (1987) by Andres Serrano in artist's frame for auction

NEW YORK---Andres Serrano’s controversial photograph, “Piss Christ,” is for sale, and the Catholic League thinks anyone who would buy it is a “sucker” and a “lout.” The Catholic League, an organization founded to defend the rights of Catholics, has condemned the piece in the past as “gratuitous and intentionally insulting.” Sotheby’s, one of the world’s largest brokers of art, will auction a print Thursday at 9:30 a.m., and expects to get between $100,000 and $150,000 for it. ”The Catholic League will not make a bid,” Donahue added in the statement. “But we are interested in interviewing the sucker who buys it. If you know who the lout is, please have him give us a call.” Serrano has said he wasn’t trying to offend. ”At the time I made Piss Christ, I wasn’t trying to get anything across,” he told The Guardian. “In hindsight, I’d say Piss Christ is a reflection of my work, not only as an artist, but as a Christian.” [link]

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Christie’s to Return Buddhist Statue to Cambodia

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Tom Mashberg and Ralph Blumenthal

Christie’s will return this 10th-century sandstone sculpture to Cambodia. Credit Christie's

NEW YORK---Yet another ancient statue looted in the 1970s from a single remote temple in the jungles of Cambodia has turned up in the United States, this time at Christie’s, which is voluntarily paying to return it to its homeland. Christie’s sold the statue, a 10th-century sandstone depiction of a mythological figure known as Pandava, to an anonymous collector in 2009, but bought it back earlier this year after officials determined that the sculpture had been looted. In just the past three years, Cambodian officials say they have traced seven statues in the United States to the same Khmer temple, called Prasat Chen, about 75 miles northeast of Angkor Wat, a site pillaged during the upheaval of that country’s civil war. [link]

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Sotheby's to Sell a Rare Life-Size Mother & Child in terracotta by French Artist Aimé-Jules Dalou

ARTDAILY

UNITED KINGDOM---Sotheby’s announced today that it will offer a supremely rare life-size masterpiece in terracotta by the great 19th-century French artist Aimé-Jules Dalou in a London sale of 19th & 20th Century Sculpture on 21 May 2014. Boulonnaise allaitant son enfant (A Young Mother from Boulogne feeding her Child) was acquired directly from the artist in 1876 by George John Browne, 3rd Marquess of Sligo, before being exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1877. It was subsequently installed at Westport House, in Westport, Ireland, where it was on view until last year. Estimated at £300,000-500,000 (€360,000-600,000), the terracotta is one of the last museum-quality life-size works by Dalou in private hands and is being sold by Jeremy Browne, the 11th Marquess of Sligo. [link]

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