News sources were mostly down on the results of this week’s Impressionist and Modern Sale at Sotheby’s. A lack of bidders for two of the featured works, a Picasso portrait and Giacometti sculpture, brought the sale total to $61.4 million– below the low estimate of $81 million and the lowest sale total in this category since 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. One bright point was the sale of Mondrian‘s Composition in Black and White, with Double Lines (pictured above) for $9.3 million, almost double its $5 million estimate.
Shouldn’t we be happy that despite an economic crisis, art maintains appeal at the high end of the market? Maybe I’m being optimistic…
The Times Online discovered that the unsold Picasso was consigned by a victim of the Bernie Madoff scandal: click here.
No, wait, The New York Times discovered that point (but this article has a picture of Tobias Meyer!): click here.
Bloomberg’s assessment of Sotheby’s economic well-being (or lack thereof): click here.
