Picasso painting sells for $179.4 million, smashing art auction record

[ghazi52]

Picasso painting sells for $179.4 million, smashing art auction record

NEW YORK: A Picasso oil painting from 1955 smashed the record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction when it soared to $179.4 million at Christie’s on Monday.

The auction house had estimated Les femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’) would sell for about $140 million, but several bidders competing via telephone drove the winning bid to $160 million, for a final price of $179,365,000 including Christie’s commission of just over 12 per cent.

The buyer of the vibrant cubist work was not identified.

The most expensive work of art previously sold at auction had been Francis Bacon’s triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud,” which sold for $142.4 million at Christie’s in November 2013.

“It will be fascinating to see how long it holds,” Jussi Pylkkanen, Christie’s global president who also served as auctioneer, said of the record price.

Giacometti’s 1947 sculpture, L’homme au doigt (Pointing man), set a world record for a sculpture, selling for $141.3 million, in line with the pre-sale estimate of about $130 million. The previous record of $104.3 million had been held by Giacometti’s L’Homme qui marche I since 2010.

Ten artists’ records were set at Christie’s special Looking Forward to the Past sale, which spanned collecting categories to include artists from Monet to Warhol and took in a total of $705.9 million, far above the pre-sale estimate of $578 million to $668 million. Only one of the 35 works failed to sell.

“The results really speak for themselves,” Pylkkanen said.

The record-setting Picasso was last auctioned in 1997, selling for $31.9 million or nearly three times its pre-sale estimate. Bidding started this time at $100 million, with deep-pocketed collectors driving the price upward in $1 million increments.

“We saw tremendous competition, with five major collectors bidding at the $120 million level,” said Pylkkanen. “The market has certainly changed dramatically.”

Christie’s said active bidders came from 35 countries, with European and Asian collectors in particular competing with Americans for the top-tier works.

Among other highlights, another Picasso, Buste de femme (Femme a la resille), fetched $67.4 million, beating the high estimate of $55 million.

Mark Rothko’s No. 36 (Black Stripe) and Monet’s Le Parlement each sold for $40.5 million. Artist records were set for Chaim Soutine, Peter Doig and Jean Dubuffet, whose Paris Polka fetched $24.8 million, more than tripling the old mark.

 

[ghazi52]

Picasso portrait expected to fetch $50m at London auction

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A portrait painted by Pablo Picasso at a pivotal moment in his career and held in a private collection since the artist’s death is to go under the hammer in London this month.

Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée (Marie-Thérèse Walter) was painted in 1937, the year in which Picasso created Guernica, his testament to the horror of the Spanish civil war.

Picasso kept the unvarnished oil-on-canvas portrait in his personal collection for nearly four decades before his death in 1973, when it passed into private hands, where it has remained ever since. Carrying an estimate of roughly $50m, the work has seldom been seen in public, having been lent for a 2013 show in Málaga and a 1986 exhibition in Basel.

“Picasso’s portraits from the 1930s are considered the perfect combination of radical invention, mastery of colour and psychological insight,” said Thomas Bompard, a specialist in Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s London, where the work will be auctioned.

The portrait’s title declares its subject to be Picasso’s young lover and muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, with whom he had had a child, and the blonde hair and beret-wearing style reinforces such a reading. But experts believe the painting also contains overt hints of the woman with whom he had already begun an affair, the photographer and painter Dora Maar.

Picasso had spotted Maar the year before at Les Deux Magots, the café in Paris. In one account, the artist was fascinated by Maar, who sat nearby, her hand splayed on the table as she thrust a knife between her fingers, occasionally missing and drawing blood.

Maar was a politically active Communist and a former lover of the Surrealist intellectual Georges Bataille. In Picasso’s paintings, her face is angular and diamond-shaped, whereas Marie-Thérèse, who guarded her privacy as Picasso’s “secret lover”, is typically portrayed with curved lines.

A dark shadow looms behind the face of the subject, which has been interpreted as Picasso signalling the transition from one mistress to another. He was quoted as saying: “It must be painful for a girl to see in a painting that she is on the way out.”

Recommended
Interest in this era of Picasso’s career has been piqued by an exhibition, now at the Musée Picasso in Paris and later this year to come to London’s Tate Modern, which focuses exclusively on a single year of explosive creativity: 1932, when he produced groundbreaking works for his first retrospective exhibition.

Five years later, with political tensions brewing in Europe and his private life becoming increasingly complicated, Picasso’s mood had darkened. “Dora Maar boosts Picasso’s conscience. In the 20th century, such an artist can’t ignore what’s happening in the world. That’s why he paints Guernica,” Mr Bompard said.

The portrait is the top lot of Sotheby’s London sale on February 28, but it will first be shown to potential buyers in Hong Kong, Taipei and New York.

A comparable portrait painted in 1938, Buste de femme (Femme à la résille), sold at Christie’s for $67.4m in 2015.

 

[ali_raza]

Picasso portrait expected to fetch $50m at London auction

• 
  
• 

A portrait painted by Pablo Picasso at a pivotal moment in his career and held in a private collection since the artist’s death is to go under the hammer in London this month.

Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée (Marie-Thérèse Walter) was painted in 1937, the year in which Picasso created Guernica, his testament to the horror of the Spanish civil war.

Picasso kept the unvarnished oil-on-canvas portrait in his personal collection for nearly four decades before his death in 1973, when it passed into private hands, where it has remained ever since. Carrying an estimate of roughly $50m, the work has seldom been seen in public, having been lent for a 2013 show in Málaga and a 1986 exhibition in Basel.

“Picasso’s portraits from the 1930s are considered the perfect combination of radical invention, mastery of colour and psychological insight,” said Thomas Bompard, a specialist in Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s London, where the work will be auctioned.

The portrait’s title declares its subject to be Picasso’s young lover and muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, with whom he had had a child, and the blonde hair and beret-wearing style reinforces such a reading. But experts believe the painting also contains overt hints of the woman with whom he had already begun an affair, the photographer and painter Dora Maar.

Picasso had spotted Maar the year before at Les Deux Magots, the café in Paris. In one account, the artist was fascinated by Maar, who sat nearby, her hand splayed on the table as she thrust a knife between her fingers, occasionally missing and drawing blood.

Maar was a politically active Communist and a former lover of the Surrealist intellectual Georges Bataille. In Picasso’s paintings, her face is angular and diamond-shaped, whereas Marie-Thérèse, who guarded her privacy as Picasso’s “secret lover”, is typically portrayed with curved lines.

A dark shadow looms behind the face of the subject, which has been interpreted as Picasso signalling the transition from one mistress to another. He was quoted as saying: “It must be painful for a girl to see in a painting that she is on the way out.”

Recommended
Interest in this era of Picasso’s career has been piqued by an exhibition, now at the Musée Picasso in Paris and later this year to come to London’s Tate Modern, which focuses exclusively on a single year of explosive creativity: 1932, when he produced groundbreaking works for his first retrospective exhibition.

Five years later, with political tensions brewing in Europe and his private life becoming increasingly complicated, Picasso’s mood had darkened. “Dora Maar boosts Picasso’s conscience. In the 20th century, such an artist can’t ignore what’s happening in the world. That’s why he paints Guernica,” Mr Bompard said.

The portrait is the top lot of Sotheby’s London sale on February 28, but it will first be shown to potential buyers in Hong Kong, Taipei and New York.

A comparable portrait painted in 1938, Buste de femme (Femme à la résille), sold at Christie’s for $67.4m in 2015.

matlab lanat yar

 

[Valar.]

Now if I criticise the painting, people are gonna say I don't have artistic sense, keen eyes to observe deeply and low IQ to analyze the meaning and symbolism behind this beautiful piece of art.

 

[Rizwan Alam]

Now if I criticise the painting, people are gonna say I don't have artistic sense, keen eyes to observe deeply and low IQ to analyze the meaning and symbolism behind this beautiful piece of art.

Artistic sense lolz... Picasso was on diarrhea on that day he made this shit & here 179 million black money got white.

 

[Well.wisher]

Artistic sense lolz... Picasso was on diarrhea on that day he made this shit & here 179 million black money got white.

Not good to insult someone's hard work .
Can u do that all stuff he did ? No .. but u can only make fun , well it's what majority people do here .

Now if I criticise the painting, people are gonna say I don't have artistic sense, keen eyes to observe deeply and low IQ to analyze the meaning and symbolism behind this beautiful piece of art.

Obviously you do .
Picasso was a great artist who when started his art work , created some great pieces l. Here's his science and charity art piece .

However , it's necessary that a great artist would like to have his own distinction that will be relative to the time he's working In . So Picasso went with classic realism to play with several other styles too . There was a blue period , which people still adore today ..,here's his the tragedy .

he continued adapting other styles too .

He went on to other several other "periods," a couple of them realist, increasingly stylizing his work and incorporating interests of the time - influences from various Island, Native, and African cultures. Shapes grew more rounded. And subsequently, much less rounded, as he entered exuberantly into Cubism, breaking reality into dramatic angular shapes, attempting to find and depict its essential structures.



So what makes his paintings tings great are ;
Though his paintings are mostly abstracted but his figures are spot on
Due to his strong nature , his paintings consisted originality and power .
He was a self revelatory in his art nd his art consisted of his life story . He was the perfect in showing the emotions and passions in his art with this much clarity .

You may not like his works nd dislike them , but someday your views nd taste will change and this is what art is about .

Picasso was a great name ever in art , he had the most amazing skills of showing what matters necessary and what doesn't .

Guess what , apple uses Picasso's technique of abstraction in all its products .


So yeah .. you are right what u said about yourself .

 

[Valar.]

Not good to insult someone's hard work .
Can u do that all stuff he did ? No .. but u can only make fun , well it's what majority people do here .


Obviously you do .
Picasso was a great artist who when started his art work , created some great pieces l. Here's his science and charity art piece .

View attachment 455971

However , it's necessary that a great artist would like to have his own distinction that will be relative to the time he's working In . So Picasso went with classic realism to play with several other styles too . There was a blue period , which people still adore today ..,here's his the tragedy .
View attachment 455972
he continued adapting other styles too .

He went on to other several other "periods," a couple of them realist, increasingly stylizing his work and incorporating interests of the time - influences from various Island, Native, and African cultures. Shapes grew more rounded. And subsequently, much less rounded, as he entered exuberantly into Cubism, breaking reality into dramatic angular shapes, attempting to find and depict its essential structures.



So what makes his paintings tings great are ;
Though his paintings are mostly abstracted but his figures are spot on
Due to his strong nature , his paintings consisted originality and power .
He was a self revelatory in his art nd his art consisted of his life story . He was the perfect in showing the emotions and passions in his art with this much clarity .

You may not like his works nd dislike them , but someday your views nd taste will change and this is what art is about .

Picasso was a great name ever in art , he had the most amazing skills of showing what matters necessary and what doesn't .

Guess what , apple uses Picasso's technique of abstraction in all its products .


So yeah .. you are right what u said about yourself .

 

[Well.wisher]

U got to agree or disagree ... ?

U got to agree or disagree ... ?

 

[Valar.]

U got to agree or disagree ... ?


U got to agree or disagree ... ?

Ugh.. dilemma...

Alright, I want a lawyer.

 

[Well.wisher]

Ugh.. dilemma...

Alright, I want a lawyer.

I understand why people have a hard time with art , Art is a symbol used to express status, power and privilege within, and allegiance to, a community .
Its displayed nd its made to communicate what nation , culture you belong to so that you can earn the benefits nd command resources.
In simple form , it's only a form of communication . you can like one art work nd dislike other or disregard it as art , it's all about opinions nd perceptions .

In art , more than seeing the painting , you need to see the context only then you can have the right perception aboit it .
Try going to a local art gallery

 

[Valar.]

I understand why people have a hard time with art , Art is a symbol used to express status, power and privilege within, and allegiance to, a community .
Its displayed nd its made to communicate what nation , culture you belong to so that you can earn the benefits nd command resources.
In simple form , it's only a form of communication . you can like one art work nd dislike other or disregard it as art , it's all about opinions nd perceptions .

In art , more than seeing the painting , you need to see the context only then you can have the right perception aboit it .
Try going to a local art gallery

Alright kiddo, art gallery visit it is then

 

[Well.wisher]

Alright kiddo, art gallery visit it is then

Thnx

 

[Arefin007]

I am into abstract art. This is my painting - took me five years to finish, consistency in textures, tones and all

Name of painting : KETCHUP

Deeper meaning : Don't forget your ketchup