November 2011 Archives

Mega-donor (and donor-intent violator) Alice Walton, speaking at the opening-day ceremony for her Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

The Tennessee Court of Appeals, Nashville, yesterday handed Fisk University (and, by extension, Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art) a victory in the four-year quest for court approval of a $30-million deal whereby Crystal Bridges would buy a half-share in Fisk's Stieglitz Collection, which is particularly rich in modernist American art. The 101 works were given to the university by artist Georgia O'Keeffe, widow of photographer/gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, with the explicit written stipulation that they never be sold.

Fisk's celebratory statement on the ruling is here. An appeal to the State Supreme Court by the Tennessee Attorney General, who has strongly opposed the deal, is possible. So far, all the AG's office has said is this: "We are reviewing the opinion and will be evaluating our options."

In the most recent previous ruling, the Davidson County Chancery Court had granted permission for the deal, but only if $20 million were "removed from Fisk and used to endow a Nashville connection for the collection."

But the Court of Appeals, in its 2-1 decision, ruled that the courts had no authority to establish a $20-million endowment for the collection. In other words, Fisk could use the entire $30 million to alleviate its serious financial difficulties.

The appeals court has now sent the case back to Davidson Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle "for reconsideration of whether, in light of the approval of the Revised Sharing Agreement, further measures are necessary to accomplish the purposes of the [O'Keeffe's] gift." The court said that while it could not require an endowment, "we do not preclude the [Davidson County] court from approving an endowment or other dedicated source of support, in the event such a proposal is presented."

In his dissent, Judge Frank Clement Jr. favored retaining Lyle's requirement for $20 million to be removed from the university's control and set aside to endow the collection's Nashville connection.

It is more than a little ironic that Alice Walton, herself the donor of a major American art collection for the public benefit, would countenance a deal that violates the explicitly stated wishes of another donor. In my Oct. 10, 2007 article for the Wall Street Journal about Walton's controversial collecting practices, I wrote:

In her June 8, 1949, letter to Fisk, O'Keeffe said that it was her understanding that Fisk "will not at any time sell or exchange any of the objects" in the collection. The university's then president pledged to honor that understanding. Loans were to be allowed only for major retrospectives.

The Fisk/Crystal Bridges arrangement also runs afoul of stipulations by the Association of Art Museum Directors that proceeds from art sales by an art museum---including a university art museum---should be used only to buy other art, never to defray the operating expenses or debts of the museum, let alone of a university that maintains the museum (scroll to P. 26, B). AAMD specifically condemned the Fisk deal in an October 2010 letter that it sent to the university's president, Hazel O'Leary.

Better late than never, AAMD should now strongly exert its influence on the institution over which it actually has leverage---not Fisk (whose Van Vechten Gallery does not belong to AAMD) but Crystal Bridges, which has repeatedly professed a desire to be embraced by the professional art museum community.

The full text of the Court of Appeals majority opinion is here. The dissent is here.

[For how much the art cost, go here. For my review of the architecture, go here. Additional CultureGrrl commentary and videos on Crystal Bridges are here, here and here.]

Many press reports about the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, have mentioned the more than $1.2 billion in 2010 contributions (including $800 million for endowment) provided last year by the Walton Family Foundation, for which the museum's founder, Alice Walton, serves as a board member.

But what about the benefactions from previous years? That information is contained in the museum's Form 990-PF tax returns for calendar years 2005-2010---available, for the most part, online. During my recent visit to the museum, I obtained the 2010 filing, not yet posted at the above link.

So now let's sharpen our pencils and do the math:

The grand total of "contributions, gifts, grants, etc." received over the six years of tax returns is some $1.6 billion. The total from the Walton Family Foundation alone was about $1.34 billion, which included not only the $800-million endowment infusion but also $403 million in 2010 for artwork, operating expenses and construction. That $403 million appears to have included donated art and library materials, valued on the return at $137.29 million. [UPDATE: The museum's spokesperson has now confirmed to me that the art and library materials were indeed part of the $403 million.] Another major contributor, in 2005, was Alice's late mother Helen Walton (widow of Wal-Mart founder Sam), who gave $250 million in cash and 65 acres of land valued at $2.51 million.

Crystal Bridges' "expenses for charitable activities" (not just construction) totaled some $508.57 million from 2005-2010.

As I've previously mentioned, the museum refuses to divulge the cost of its ambitious construction project. I've gotten different reasons for this secrecy, depending on whom I've asked. I suspect the real reason may be the same as one of the reasons for its long delay in disclosing the full scope of its collection: Having already endured many potshots, museum officials are gun shy---especially in light of charges by some critics that it's unseemly for Wal-Mart heirs to lavish megabucks on a cultural mecca, while Wal-Mart is allegedly shortchanging employees. (I do not subscribe to that line of argument. While reasonable people will disagree, I believe that an art museum is a worthwhile charitable cause.)

While we as yet have no idea about the total cost of Crystal Bridges' sprawling Bentonville campus, we can add up the payments made to the architect and the builders by perusing the 990s: The listed disbursements to the firm of architect Moshe Safdie through 2010 amount to some $16 million. The primary construction firm, Fort Worth-based Linbeck-Nabholz, received some $75.08 million, with $49.26 million of that earned last year alone.

And what about the outlays for art?

The tax returns for 2005-08 list a total of $277.64 million under "art acquisitions." But there's no such category for 2009 or 2010. For those two years, there's a new category---"museum procurement"---totaling some $167.8 million. But this could be money used to "procure" furnishings and other necessities for the new museum, not art. I'm awaiting clarification on this from the museum and will update here, if and when I get it.

As 990 wonks know, these tax returns also list the salaries of museum officers. The 2010 compensation for director Don Bacigalupi was $600,000.

Next fall, when the 2011 tax return goes online, we'll likely see a much more diverse list of contributors than has been reported thus far. Here are the inaugural rosters of benefactors, now publicly credited on the museum's walls. Other than those contributing to the "Next Generation Fund" (addressing social, educational and economic barriers to museum participation), the listed donors are almost exclusively corporations:



 

Here's something to chew on before you roast your Thanksgiving turkey---the continuation of my narrated ramble through the galleries of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR. (Part I of the video is here. My videoed gallery conversation with curator Kevin Murphy is here.)

The Crystal Bridges curatorial team, outside the museum's library
Left to right: David Houston, curatorial director, Matt Dawson, deputy director for art and education, Kevin Murphy, American art curator...


...and Chris Crosman, founding curator (poised to peruse a Sotheby's American art catalogue over lunch in the museum's restaurant)

Before we go careening around Crystal Bridges Museum in my upcoming Part II of our CultureGrrl Video tour inside Alice Walton's new museum of American art, let's focus for a moment on a single painting---George Pettit's "The Union Refugees," 1865. It epitomizes what Crystal Bridges does best, by calling deserved attention to a work by an unfamiliar, compelling artist.

The Pettit (seen on the left, below, and in the CultureGrrl Video at the end of this post) is part of an ensemble of three works related to the Civil War and its aftermath. Together they constitute one of the most intriguing juxtapositions in this sprawling inaugural installation. (You also see Eakins' "Benjamin Rand," 1874, through the doorway to the next gallery.)



On the right is a George Inness landscape---"An Old Roadway," c. 1880, depicting a chance encounter between an itinerant African American woman and a seated white child. Curator Kevin Murphy believes the underlying narrative probably refers to the freed slaves' migration from the South "after the failure of Reconstruction":



Here's a closer (blurrier) look at that meeting:



The middle object in this ensemble is a powerful statue, carved in basswood, which was an early purchase by Alice Walton (acquired before she had a museum in mind):



The accompanying label is somewhat misleading:



The title makes it appear that the subject is a freed slave. But as Murphy points out, the sculpture looks "pre-Civil War. He looks like he is on the [auction] block." If he is indeed "free," he is still downtrodden, perhaps suggesting the ongoing struggles of African Americans to achieve true freedom---"the beginning of Jim Crow," in Murphy's words.

There's another misleading aspect to the label---the attribution. During the installation process, Murphy discovered an obvious inscription on the base of the sculpture that indicated it was carved by a different hand:



If you peer very closely in the lower left corner of the base (in my very inadequate photograph), you can make out the name "Otto Braun"---the name of the person who carved the wood sculpture. Cadwalader-Guild's original sculpture, Murphy said, was bronze, not wood. We don't know whether she had anything to do with this reproduction of her work in another medium.

This is perhaps the most obvious instance of the general inadequacy of the object labels throughout the museum. Relatively few provide information other than artist, title, date. That's because the curators had little time to study and interpret what they were installing: The art was stored in faraway locations until just a short time before the Nov. 11 opening. The focus had to be on getting the collection up (a story in itself), not on interpretive analysis.

Which brings us to the third work in the ensemble, the George Pettit, which curator Murphy recently purchased for the museum from a New York gallery:


George Pettit. "The Union Refugees," 1865

The painting's tantalizing ambiguities and multiple layers of meaning fascinated Kevin, who has a lot to say on the subject---none of it on the barebones label. So let's gather 'round now (and turn the sound up a bit) to hear him expound on the subtexts of "The Union Refugees" (if that's indeed who they are) and on why opportunities such as this to undertake groundbreaking research on unfamiliar works attracted him from his associate curatorship at the Huntington LIbrary, San Marino, CA, to Crystal Bridges:

They're so friendly in Arkansas that it's getting a little weird for this Bronx native who grew up leery about talking to strangers.

I've received yet another offer of a place to stay during my Bender in Bentonville from Ted Talley, a regional sales manager for a storage shed company that does business with Wal-Mart, He lives close to Crystal Bridges, but has two dogs in his house. (I'll pass.)

Ted also offered to show me around town during my visit. It might be nice to get a sense of the locality from a local---even (or maybe especially) one who told me he has "disagree[d] with just about everything you have said or written about Crystal Bridges." Ted (aka Broughton) was also one of the commenters (on NPR's website) for the recent NPR piece in which I participated.

Here's what Ted wrote to me, as a corrective to my Ugly New Yorker perspective. By the way, I didn't coin the "Wally World" tag in this post's headline: That came from Ted's Blogback:

First of all, I disagree with your take on the "witless" video, as you call it, now residing on the Crystal Bridges home page [my links, not his]. I think the video is one of the wittiest pieces of satire I have ever seen. Give the people at the museum credit for being able to laugh at themselves and recognize and include both the corporate and the populist. The cast of characters in the video are indeed the corporate giants of Northwest Arkansas. Feed that fact to the 99 percenters and hear their snarling noises rise up momentarily.

But the other "characters" include the "arty" guy on the bicycle, which I am sure is a nod to the artist community over in Eureka Springs and elsewhere in these parts and the academics down in Fayetteville (where you have been graciously invited to stay during your visit). And then, of course, the caravan of school kids on bicycles. What better icon for the educational mission of the museum than the school kids, à la "E.T"?

Capping off with the grandiose unveiling of the neon "Open" sign, a years-long staple item for small business owners to purchase at Sams Club (and competitors Costco and BJs as well). Shake it off, Dear Lee. Laugh with us, not at us, at least for a few moments.

Secondly, more importantly than quibbling over a video, I offer hospitality. I think it is wonderful that one of our local professors has extended the invite to you. If you take him up on it you will be able to see the true market here (not just Bentonville from airport to museum): The series of small cities that runs from an iconic college campus nestled in the hills up through farmland and nondescript shopping and hotel sprawl up to the little square in Bentonville and the musuem could be telling for you (negative or positive).

And if you were to continue beyond Bentonville, you would be returned to quietly picturesque Ozark hills approaching nearby Missouri, similar to the south of Fayetteville. Your visit to a comrade in Fayetteville would also give you some insider's view of our own "family squabbles" here in the two-county market. Fayetteville folks, in their towers above the "Athens of Arkansas," sometimes tend to look at us in the county north, with our big-business and Walmart rumbling trucks, as declassé and nouveau riche.

And sometimes we here in Wally World look at our "town and gown" friends to the south as being less than pragmatic sticks-in-the-mud. Oh, yes, and unappreciative for what the "new money" here in Bentonville has done for Fayetteville in general and the university specifically: Count the number of times the letter "W" is on a building or academic program at the university!

Sounds like this should be an interesting visit. Speaking of which, my blogging may be light this week. I've got much to do and see---starting first thing this morning.

NPR's "Weekend Edition" has now posted the transcript of Joel Rose's piece (in which I participated) on Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art---"Wal-Mart Heiress' Show Puts A High Price On Art."

The comments that particularly struck me, when taken together, were these:

John Wilmerding (art historian and Alice Walton's art advisor): Nobody, including myself, who's an Americanist thought that you could begin to acquire great American masterpieces in today's market. We had all thought they were already in public collections or in private hands.

Eric Widing (Christie's head of American art): Alice's presence in the marketplace has clearly brought out works of art that might not otherwise have been offered for sale.

That, in a nutshell is the "destabilizing effect" of Walton's fortune, which I referred to when I stated:

You can't exactly blame Alice for taking advantage of opportunities. On the other hand, her resources are so great that they provide a tremendous temptation for museums and other cultural institutions to monetize works that would better remain in their own communities...

CultureGrrl Donor 181 from Los Angeles has stepped up to my "Bender in Bentonville" challenge, which means that I need only $140 more to defray my $200 in expenses for hotel and cabs.

But the offer that really touched me came from a Fayetteville, AR, art-history teacher, who offered to put me up at his home and transport me to and from the museum (about 40 minutes away, he said). "We could use your corrective, no matter whether it ends being up admiring or withering," he wrote.

I couldn't have asked for a more personally gratifying note---both because of its generosity and because the writer understood that I'm going to Crystal Bridges this week with an open mind, when it comes to forming an opinion (beyond my first impressions from my May visit) about the collection and the facility that houses it. (By the way, I declined the CultureGrrl reader's generous offer, with warm thanks.)

Wait a minute! I just visited the Crystal Bridges homepage and could not believe what I saw. It's a video intended to welcome you to the museum.

You'll need to view it yourself, to see if you will find it as astonishingly witless as I did. But I will tell you this (in case you're not as acquainted with Bentonville as I am): The three trucks that you'll see serve as advertisements for the area's three big corporations: J.B. Hunt (trucking), which on Thursday announced it was donating $1 million to Crystal Bridges; Tyson (food); and...well, you already know the third one.

Here's Alice herself, in the video's final moments:

Wanna hear what John Wilmerding, Eric Widing, Steven Conn and CultureGrrl said this morning on on NPR's Weekend Edition about Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art?

Now you can! (More details about our conversations with NPR's Joel Rose, here.)

A gallery at Crystal Bridges (from the museum's Facebook page)

UPDATE: When do things ever go as planned? The NPR segment pondering Alice's palace (in which I participate) has been rescheduled to tomorrow's Weekend Edition [not Morning Edition, as I previously wrote] at around 9:40 a.m. ET. (We can only hope.) I'll actually be in another "B" city then---Boston, not Bentonville.

And my warm thanks to CultureGrrl Donors 179 and 180, who have have helped send me on my way to the Bender in Bentonville! (I've still got $165 to go towards the $200 goal. Who'll buy me another round?)

SECOND UPDATE: The broadcast has now occurred, as (re)scheduled. You can hear us here.

Just in time [almost] for today's 11-11-11 public opening of Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Joel Rose of NPR's All Things Considered has included me in a group of commentators musing this afternoon [now rescheduled to tomorrow's Morning Edition] on the accomplishments and controversies related to Alice's art palace in Bentonville, AR. (I don't know the precise time this will air, but, depending on your local NPR station's schedule, "ATC" is usually heard during afternoon drive time, around 4-6 p.m. You can listen live at the above link or listen to the archived show later.)

Also weighing in with Joel, if things go according to plan, are: veteran art historian John Wilmerding, a Crystal Bridges board member, chairman of the board of the National Gallery in Washington, and Walton's long-time advisor for art acquisitions; Eric Widing, head of American paintings at Christie's (which brokered the "Gross Clinic" sale); and Steven Conn, who I believe is this Steven Conn, a history professor at the Ohio State University with an interest in museums. (Did no museum director want to opine for this program?)

Headphoned in NPR's New York studio on Wednesday, I found myself going easy on the Walmart heiress when Rose lobbed questions regarding the fixation of some critics on the connection (or lack thereof) between Walmart's corporate practices and the use of Walmart-generated wealth to bankroll this glittering art facility in the big-box company's corporate-headquarters town.

I also noted that Walton's collecting practices (which had occasioned my infamous "culture vulture" epithet in the Wall Street Journal) have become more circumspect in the years since firestorms erupted over her campaigns to acquire "Kindred Spirits" (which she got), "The Gross Clinic" (which she didn't) and Fisk's Stieglitz Collection (still in litigation). Her deployment of unrivaled financial resources to relocate masterpieces with strong connections to their home communities was strongly criticized by some members of those communities and by the artworld at large (including me).

In my NPR ruminations, I expressed support for bringing culture to the hinterlands. But I also listed some aspects of Moshe Safdie's arresting architecture for the new facility that seemed to me (during my tour of the facility in May) as possibly problematic for the art. I concluded my conversation with Joel by noting that I needed to see the finished facility firsthand (as I plan to do next week) to determine whether my initial impressions would be confirmed or confounded.

Crystal Spring was looking more like Muddy Spring when this photo (on the museum's Facebook page) was taken:



I've been assured, though, that this unappealing brownness was only temporary.

I have no idea what snippets from my remarks will actually be used on the air. I particularly look forward to hearing what Joel and my co-commentators will have to say.

In the meantime, here's NPR's descriptive piece about the new museum, Wal-Mart Heiress Brings Art Museum To The Ozarks, as reported by Elizabeth Blair.

And as a special CultureGrrl treat, here's a 62-page illustrated checklist (arranged alphabetically by artist's name) of many of the works that are in the inaugural installation, as well as another checklist of works in "Wonder World," a contemporary exhibition drawn from the collection. (Athough the latter pages are labeled "Confidential," I was assured by Crystal Bridges' marketing coordinator, Alice Murphy, that they are now public information.)

Finally, although my "Send CultureGrrl to Canada" campaign this summer was not a notable success, how about helping to defray CultureGrrl's "Bender in Bentonville"? I'll be using my frequent flyer miles to travel there, but two nights hotel will set me back $156. (Rates in Walmartland are quite reasonable!) I'll also need some cab fare to get me back and forth.

I'll try for a modest $200 infusion. Would anyone like to be my kickstarter? To give me a kick, just click my "Donate" button in the middle column.

The $61.68-million Clyfford Still: "1949-A-No.1"

Last Wednesday, when I left the Impressionist/Modern sale at Sotheby's, I found myself nearly alone in the elevator (but for one other person) with triumphant auctioneer Tobias Meyer. I told him that I had found it a "fun sale" to watch.

"It will be even more fun next week," he assured me.

I attended tonight's Contemporary sale virtually, rather than crossing the art handlers' picket line once again, but even from watching the webcast, it was clear that Meyer was indeed having lots [pun] of fun. I don't think I've ever seen this usually stern, sometimes admonitory auctioneer grin so much during a sale. And why not? He had a bang-up hammer total of $277.95 million ($315.84 million with buyer's premium), exceeding the sale's presale estimate of $192.05-270.85 million. The auction was 84.9% sold by lot and a strong 94.7% sold by value.

As in the evening Impressionist/Modern auctions last week, Sotheby's significantly exceeded its rival's Contemporary results of the night before. Christie's came up with a $216.31-million hammer total; $247.6-million final total with buyer's premium. Once again, Sotheby's achieved more with less---73 lots vs. 91 at Christie's.

But the people with the biggest grins on their faces were probably the interested group gazing down from a skybox as four Clyfford Still paintings were knocked down to applause. The priciest, above, occasioned a bidding war that continued for more than eight minutes, achieving a hammer price of $55 million, against a presale estimate of $25-35 million. At $61.68 million with buyer's premium, the final price nearly tripled the previous $21.3-million auction record for the artist.

As CultureGrrl readers are well aware, the Stills were being sold, against the artist's and his late widow's wishes, to benefit the endowment of the Clyfford Still Museum, Denver. (I know that the Denver denizens downed champagne in their skybox after their dicey disposals were done deals, because Kelly Crow, the Wall Street Journal's art-market scribe, live tweeted this sighting.)

Dean Sobel, the museum's director and the person responsible for raising an endowment for the about-to-open museum, had previously stated that he needed about $25 million to adequately support its operations. Meyer did the director's job for him, and then some: The four paintings were estimated to fetch a hammer total of $51-71.5 million, but achieved $101.55 million ($114.1 million, with the buyer's premium that is paid to the auction house but is sometimes shared with the consignor).

Overachieving, in this case, was not praiseworthy. If the museum needed only $25 million, it should have cautiously aimed to not overshoot that target. It's bad enough to sell works that should have gone to the museum to bankroll operating costs; its worse to sell more than absolutely necessary.

The four Stills were among several groups of works for which Sotheby's had secured, in advance of the sale, "irrevocable bids" from third parties. An "irrevocable bidder" receives compensation if someone else is the eventual buyer and the hammer price exceeds the prearranged amount of the irrevocable bid. These deals are made to assure that the work will, in fact, sell---a precaution that, with hindsight, appears to have been unnecessary for these fought-over works.

Sotheby's provided a guarantee for the works, but contrary to what at least one commentator has said, the 12-page sale agreement between Denver and the auction house provided that the minimum total guaranteed price for the four-work consignment would be $25 million. As I previously wrote, the actual guaranteed price, subject to further (undisclosed) negotiation, could have been (and, judging from the estimates, likely was) higher than the $25-million minimum.

The other big artist's auction record at Sotheby's was the $20.8-million final price for the Richter below, which exceeded Sotheby's high hopes with a hammer price of $18.5 million against a presale estimate of $9-12 million:


Tobias Meyer with Gerhard Richter's "Abstraktes Bild," 1997, $20.8 million

All eight Richters in the sale, consigned by a single private collector, exceeded their presale estimates, sometimes enormously.

The four works on paper consigned by UBS, on the other hand, had mixed results: A Sam Francis and an Ellsworth Kelly sold above estimate and set auction records for works on paper by those artists ($722,500 and $686,500, respectively). But the highest-estimated of the four UBS disposals, a de Kooning, and the second-highest estimated, a Rauschenberg, failed to find buyers. The Rauschenberg, surprisingly, was not helped by the fact that it had appeared in the Museum of Modern Art's show of works from UBS's collection.The Francis, which was said in Sotheby's catalogue also to have been part of that museum show, in fact was not, a museum spokesperson told me in response to my query.

For Sotheby's complete results, go here. The auction house did not announce buyers for any of the lots, but reporters who attended the sale may know more.

Online view of tonight's Christie's auction, immediately after Christopher Burge hammered down the top lot, Roy Lichtenstein's 1961 "I Can See the Whole Room!...and There's Nobody in it!"

After last week's debacle, Christie's regained its footing at tonight's Contemporary sale with a hammer total of $216.31 million, slightly below the presale estimate of $226.45-312.34 million. The total with buyer's premium was $247.6 million. (Estimates refer to hammer total, not the hammer plus premium.) The sale was a solid 90% sold by lot, 87% sold by dollar.

The top lot, as expected, was the Lichtenstein above, hammered down at $38.5 million against a $35-45 million presale estimate. At $43.2 million with the buyer's premium, it set a new auction record for the artist. The seller (reportedly Courtney Ross, widow of former Time Warner CEO Steve Ross) made a tidy profit, having bought it at Christie's (at the celebrated November 1988 Tremaine Collection sale) for a mere $2.09 million.

Another major auction record was $10.72 million for a Louise Bourgeois "Spider" estimated at $4-6 million.

Some 12 lots in tonight's sale, including the Lichtenstein, bore guarantees that were financed by third parties. (A guarantee is the amount a consignor is promised, whether or not bidding reaches that level.) Bidding for eight of those 12 guaranteed lots were lackluster---knocked down at the low estimate or less.

The sale got off to a sizzling start with 26 works consigned by ahead-of-the-curve collector Peter Norton (whose eponymous antivirus scan I'm running as I write this, because my computer has become excruciatingly slow). All Norton's works sold, often wildly above their presale estimates, with nine artists achieving new auction records. The Norton hammer-price total was $22.85 million, trouncing the $11.15-15.94 million estimate.

Norton's most viral lot was Paul McCarthy's "Tomato Head (Green), 1994, with a hammer price of $4 million against a mere $1-1.5 million estimate. Its $4.56-million final price, including buyer's premium, set an auction record for the artist.


Paul McCarthy, "Tomato Head (Green), 1994,

The 91-lot sale had several expensive failures. A 1981 Francis Bacon was left stranded at $9.5 million, against an estimate of $12-18 million. A 1971 de Kooning failed to sell at $7 million (estimate: $8-12 million).

For the complete Norton pricelist, go here. For the rest of the sale, here.

Alice Walton's home in Bentonville, AR, as seen on CBS "Sunday Morning"

I'm poised to fly to Bentonville next week, art-lings.

But before I pack my camera and notepad, I want to make one thing clear: Whatever I have already said and will yet say about the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, my appraisal has nothing to do with Wal-Mart's corporate practices (not my topic), big-city snobbery towards art in Arkansas (spreading the cultural wealth is praiseworthy) or Alice Walton's personal life (not relevant to my assessment of the ambitious institution that she has founded).

In an Alice-friendly, eight and a half-minute segment, "Alice's Wonderland," aired yesterday on CBS's "Sunday Morning," critics of Crystal Bridges are cast hurtful villains, whose views about Walton and her museum may be biased by a distaste for the source of her wealth and for the state where she grew up.

As it turns out, I'm one of the bad guys.

In the middle of Martha Teichner's report, below, you'll see my byline flash by, attached to my Wall Street Journal article of Oct. 10, 2007, in which I used some strong language to describe Alice's collecting practices at that time (think, "Kindred Spirits," "The Gross Clinic," Fisk University's Stieglitz Collection). My offending words are read aloud by Teichner and highlighted in yellow.

Is this what's meant by "yellow journalism"?

You'll see my 10 seconds of infamy at about 4:28 into the video clip. You'll also hear Teichner say that the building's cost is "an estimated [by whom?] $150 million dollars. No one will say, exactly."

Museum officials have refused to divulge the cost of the project---a secrecy unprecedented in my long career of covering museum construction. One tidbit of information: Don Bacigalupi, the museum's director, tells Teichner that the collection totals more than 1,000 works.

Here are Alice and Martha (and me):

Robert Rauschenberg, "Untitled," 1958
Presale estimate: $1-1.5 million

MoMA's potential misstep has now become a mishap.

In 2005, it lavished a major exhibition on works from a single corporate collection, during a time when many practical-minded, bottom line-oriented companies were thinking about liquidating their art,

At least two (possibly three) works from MoMA's exhibition, "Contemporary Voices: Works from the UBS Art Collection," are included in Sotheby's evening Contemporary sale on Wednesday. They are among 12 UBS works being unloaded both at that sale and at Sotheby's Contemporary day sale on Thursday. The total presale estimate for the UBS consignments is $4-5.9 million. The above-illustrated Rauschenberg from the MoMA show is the second-highest estimated UBS work, exceeded only by a de Kooning.

In a CultureGrrl post, I had criticized MoMA's UBS display:

It [the UBS show] included works still privately owned by UBS, in addition to those given [or promised] to MoMA. This broke with MoMA's own policy of not displaying private collections unless they are promised. UBS can now, if it chooses, do what so many other corporations have done once the art-collecting CEO (in this case, MoMA trustee Donald Marron) leaves the business: It can sell these works, their value enhanced by MoMA's prestigious imprimatur.

That is exactly what is now happening.

This Beuys, in Sotheby's Thursday sale, is on MoMA's published checklist for its UBS show:


Joseph Beuys, "Hind," c. 1950
Presale estimate: $200,000-300,000

According to Sotheby's catalogue, the Sam Francis below was also in MoMA's show, but it's not on the museum's checklist. (I'm checking with MoMA and will update if I get this clarified.)

[UPDATE: A MoMA spokesperson said that the Sam Francis was NOT in the museum's show, notwithstanding what's in Sotheby's catalogue.]

Rick Mather

London-based, American-born architect Rick Mather has another U.S. museum gig---deservedly so. It's the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA.

Mather's deft expansion of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was unaccountably under the media radar, although it was favorably reviewed by me last year in the Wall Street Journal (and also on CultureGrrl, although with a few quibbles).

At its annual fundraising gala last night, the PEM announced that a hefty $550 million has been raised towards its $650-million capital campaign, bankrolling (and providing endowment for) Mather's 175,000-square-foot, $200-million expansion, to open in 2016. Support for new installations and other projects is also included in this capital campaign.

Mather was chosen from "a list of internationally acclaimed architects...due to [his] firm's keen sensitivity to urban context, ability to unite contemporary design with existing structures, and success in integrating art and architecture," the museum stated.

According to the PEM's press release:

The expansion will add up to 75,000 square feet of new galleries; a new restaurant and roof garden; new public program and education space; and essential improvements to collections storage, exhibition processing and conservation functions.

What's interesting is that the PEM isn't re-engaging the architect who designed its last expansion, which opened in 2003---Moshe Safdie, architect for Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which opens this Friday in Bentonville, AR. CultureGrrl called Safdie's expansion, The Atrium that Ate the Peabody Essex.

[UPDATE: Here's what a PEM spokesperson has now told me about why Safdie wasn't selected: "The Safdie expansion is such a strong, defining, elegant statement---one of his very best among museums---that it would be difficult to have two such statements in juxtaposition in the same institution." She added that no renderings of what the expansion may look like are yet available, because it's "too early in the design process."]

Chatting with me in July, Dan Monroe, the PEM's director (and current president of the Association of Art Museum Directors), expressed satisfaction with Safdie's work. Here's what he told me:

Moshe's a great architect and it was a delight to work with him....We had a very productive relationship with Moshe. But if you talked to him, he'd verify that we were also very strong and involved clients. [Look out, Rick!]

I'll give you one example: When it came to the selection of brick, we went through a very extensive process to find a brick that worked in many ways. It wasn't the brick he recommended....We wanted dimensionality, texture, some color differentiation. We wanted something that would resonate in a contemporary context and also historically, in relationship to the historical architecture....We built about 20 walls that were 20 feet wide and six feet tall and we looked at 136 kinds of brick before we found the one that we wanted and that worked....
 
We're actually really happy with our building. People love to be in it. It's extremely functional. It's inspirational. And it's wearing extremely well.

Not so the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, which I visited this summer. Here's what the monumentally tall exterior concrete pillars of its 23-year-old Safdie building now look like:



And here's a closer view:



This is what the NGC's facilities manager had to say, through the museum's spokeperson, about the unsightly staining:

Most of the staining is due to carbonation of the aging concrete and moisture in the surface cracks. There is also some organic staining occurring in some areas. Some corrosion stains are found at times and they have been attributed to iron inclusions in the concrete mix or exposed steel wire ties that corrode....

In 2001, locations showing signs of deterioration were selected for trial repairs and have been monitored since to determine effectiveness of repairs and progression of deterioration. Repairs have consisted of sack-rubbing, mortar patching, replacement of precast elements....

In 2010, a comprehensive review and hammer sounding of all cast in place columns, beams and flat roofs from a telescoping boom revealed minor deterioration. Based on the findings of the 2010 reviews, the exposed concrete columns, beams and roofs are not showing signs of performance or durability issues that would warrant major rehabilitation work in the short term. Minor repairs to specific locations have been recommended in the short term.

But back to the PEM: An article that its director wrote for the current issue of Architecture Boston---The Museum as Medium---suggests what may have led Monroe to Mather (although PEM's circumstances are not specifically mentioned in the article):

The totality of the [museum] experience includes a host of factors that have, in far too many instances, been ignored or given short shrift by architects and museum staff and trustees. Examples are all too familiar: unwelcoming entrances; awkward placement and design of admission and orientation desks; inadequate signage; poor acoustics; insufficient restroom facilities; lack of comfortable seating; confusing circulation flows; fatiguing and disorienting gallery layouts....

Now, at the beginning of the 21st century..., we frequently see ourselves designing buildings that in too many instances are not very removed from their Beaux-Arts predecessors: advancing the monument at the expense of the visitors and their experience of art. The seamless integration of architectural expression, interpretation of art, and the visitor experience should be our goal.

Speaking of which, here's my WSJ assessment of Mather's VMFA expansion:

The genius of Mr. Mather's design is its enhancement of the visitor experience through ease of circulation and navigation, interrupted by ample opportunities to take a break and refresh the eyes in lounges and on an outdoor deck overlooking a reflecting pool....

Once in the galleries, you are impelled onward by sightlines that extend across the breadth of the museum, anchored by "axial objects"--powerful pieces strategically positioned along the linear thoroughfares, beckoning you into the next room. The museum's "wow" spaces are created not by flashy architecture but by exceptional collections, enticingly installed.

Frans Hals, "Merrymakers at Shrovetide," c. 1616, Metropolitan Museum, as it appears in the multimedia online version of my Two Painters: So Alike, So Different

I was completely (and very pleasantly) surprised this morning when I discovered that the online version of my Caravaggio/Hals comparison piece for the "Arts & Leisure" section of tomorrow's NY Times has been ramped up into a nifty multimedia feature (with my 1260-word text intact).

Go to Two Painters: So Alike, So Different to see what delighted me. Roll over the various spots on the four paintings that are marked with capital letters to experience the clever technological enhancement produced for the Times by Jon Huang and Erik Piepenburg.

Thanks guys! (Now how do I learn to produce this?)

I should mention that although the Hals show at the Met which, in part, inspired my musings, has now closed, one of his two paintings that I discuss can still be seen in the Met's permanent collection galleries. The other, according to the Met's website, is currently off view. Kudos to the Met's website (recently greatly enhanced) for providing this guidance on what is and is not on display.

The National Gallery of Canada, last summer

It's "the most anticipated art exhibition of the year," raved Gaile Robinson, art critic of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Yet, Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome, which opened Oct. 16 at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth (to Jan. 8, following its initial run at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa), has thus far been inexplicably ignored by most art-reviewing publications outside the localities hosting the show.

As you may remember from a CultureGrrl Video, where I left you gazing at the entrance to the show, I experienced "Caravaggio" during my visit last summer to the NGC. Better late than never, the NY Times' "Arts & Leisure" section this Sunday is publishing my close-looking piece---"Two Painters: So Alike, So Different"---which was, in part, inspired by that show. One of the "alike" and "different" artists of the headline is Caravaggio. The other is his near-contemporary who was the subject of another recent major museum exhibition. (You'll have to see the piece to find out who.)

When you read the article, you may understand why I was pleasantly surprised that my text, a bit risqué for a family newspaper, survived uncensored.

UPDATE: You can read me now, here. Scroll down below the nifty multimedia feature to read the bulk of my introductory text.

It's about time that I broke CultureGrrl's silence about the show, which was co-curated by Sebastian Schütze, art history professor and chair at the University of Vienna, and David Franklin, the National Gallery of Canada's deputy director and chief curator, who left before the show opened to become director of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

With 47 loans from 13 countries, Ottawa's show (somewhat altered in Fort Worth) was a throwback to the not-so-distant good old days when major museums regularly mounted ambitious scholarly shows, with loans drawn from a long list of international lenders.

But like many such "Big-Name Artist and..." shows, this one is a mixed bag. Some of the 46 works by the Caravaggisti (44 at the Kimbell) are masterpieces that hold their own against the progenitor's oeuvre; many are far less riveting.

Any show that brings together 12 Caravaggios (10 at the Kimbell) is a noteworthy event, although the Caravaggio exhibition mounted last year at the Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the artist's death, more than doubled Ottawa's Caravaggio count, with 25 examples.

The NGC took a thematic (rather than chronological) approach, presenting many evocative juxtapositions of works within those themes---youths and musicians; dupes and thieves; saints; religious dramas. In each section, the examples were widely disparate in technical execution and emotional temperature.

This was particularly true of two Caravaggios, on facing walls, depicting the "Sacrifice of Isaac." This one, which was the cover image for the catalogue for the Metropolitan Museum's 1985 "The Age of Caravaggio" show, seemed to me reminiscent (in the extreme contortion of the youth's features) of the earlier "Boy Bitten by a Lizard," which figures in my Times piece:


Caravaggio, "Sacrifice of Isaac," 1602-03, Galleria degli Uffizi
© Scala / Art Resource, New York


Caravaggio, "Boy Bitten by a Lizard," 1594-96, Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell'Arte Roberto Longhi, Florence
© Nimatallah / Art Resource, NY

The other depiction at the NGC of Isaac's aborted sacrifice, 1598-99, shows an almost placid-looking youth who has already heard the welcome words of the intervening angel (conveniently accompanied by the ram to be substituted for the sacrifice). This was one of two loans from the collection of Barbara Piasecka Johnson (also including a "Saint Francis," c. 1598), neither of which is at the Kimbell. (I could not obtain permission to reproduce either of Johnson's pictures, but you can see a not-so-great reproduction of "Sacrifice" here.)

The show's catalogue (where all the works are reproduced) is praiseworthy for Franklin's astute close readings of key works by the artist. But the keen intellect that informs the catalogue is insufficiently evident in the gallery labels, which are largely descriptive of what we can see for ourselves, failing to penetrate the paintings' profundities. The sensuality and haunting homoeroticism of some Caravaggios is never mentioned. The Kimbell has rewritten the labels, to more insightful, scholarly effect.

The Ottawa show was also noteworthy as the first public showing of a painting from a private British collection that has just been attributed to Caravaggio---"Saint Augustine," 1600 (not in the Kimbell's show). While escorting me through the exhibition, NGC curator Christopher Etheridge, author of one of the catalogue essays, acknowledged that the attribution of this "discovery" is still the subject of debate. To my non-specialist's eyes, it looked convincing. (I was not able to get reproduction rights for "Saint Augustine," but you can see a reproduction of it, here.)

My guess is that U.S. publications were waiting for the Fort Worth version of "Caravaggio" before dispatching reviewers. It's a rare opportunity to experience a critical mass of this celebrated master's work. Many of those paintings are from American collections. For a short time, though, they can be savored together.

Ebullient Duo: Auctioneer and Sotheby's contemporary art head Tobias Meyer speaks, while Sotheby's Impressionist/Modern co-chair David Norman beams, at last night's press conference

Fears of a new art-market nosedive were put to rest last night at Sotheby's, with an impressive Impressionist/Modern sale that was as lively as Tuesday's Christie's auction was deadly. The consensus was that this success was not so much a matter of better quality as of down-to-earth estimates and reserves.

"We lost a lot of consignments when we didn't believe that we should go to a higher estimate," David Norman, Sotheby's Impressionist/Modern co-chair, said at the press conference after the sale. He also revealed (unsurprisingly) that after Christie's "sobering" experience the night before, he and his colleagues contacted consignors about lowering reserves. Prudence was rewarded.

Still, Sotheby's sale did have its share of unsold works---some 13 of the 70 lots. But these disappointments came, for the most part, in the last third of the sale, so they didn't cast a pall over the whole evening (as did Christie's stranded Degas dancer, an early, pricey failure). And unlike Christie's buy-ins, Sotheby's passed lots were not the highest-estimated works but less important merchandise.

As a result, the sold total for Sotheby's was a healthy 87% by dollar (compared to Christie's 55%) and 81% by lot (compared to Christie's 62%).

With fewer lots (70 vs. 82) and a much lower presale estimate than its rival ($167.6-220.9 million, compared to Christie's $211.9-305.35 million), Sotheby's still managed to garner a much higher hammer total---$174.76 million, compared to Christie's $122.43 million.

The big lot of the night (as Sotheby's had hoped) was Gustav Klimt's "Litzlberg am Attersee," c. 1914-15, a work restituted by the Salzburg Museum of Modern Art to the heir of a Nazi victim. Two determined bidders pushed the price to $36 million ($40.4 million with buyer's premium), against an unpublished estimate that Sotheby's said was "in excess of $25 million."


Klimt, "Litzlberg am Attersee," c. 1914-15

My nose for news managed to position me in the standing-room press section immediately next to (and gazing down upon) the winning bidder, Zurich dealer David Lachenmann, who was seated in the third row on the outside aisle. I couldn't help but overhear his running phone commentary to his collector-client. Although he at first refrained from bidding, I suspected he would eventually figure in this drama.

I soon received a lesson in bidding strategy: Lachenmann kept his client constantly informed of the progress in the room, but laid back while the bidding rose from $17 million to $23 million, where it seemed to stall.

"It's 23. I'm going to give you every increment," he assured the client, who apparently was wondering why he hadn't heard any movement. "It's still 23."

Then, when it looked like the hammer might fall, Lachenmann and his client made their move. The dealer entered the fray on the collector's behalf at $23.5 million. The running commentary (and the bidding) continued in $500,000 increments, with the otherwise calm Lachenmann breathing a deep sigh before signaling a $29.5-million bid.

Three bids later, his rival, bidding by phone through a Sotheby's agent, sought to unnerve Lachenmann with a million-dollar jump to $31.5. They both then reverted to $500,000 increments, until the opponent tried a TWO-million-dollar jump, to $35 million. Lachenmann coolly went ahead to $36 million, clinching the deal and soon thereafter finding himself in a scrum of reporters, with whom he chatted amiably.

Speaking of scrums, I entered Sotheby's to the cries of "Shame on you!" from picketing art handlers, who are in a long-running labor dispute with Sotheby's. Their horns and whistles could at times be heard within the saleroom. Security inside was tighter than usual.

That's the face of Sotheby's president, Bill Ruprecht, on the pole-mounted sign to the right:



But back to the sale: The museums that deaccessioned works through Sotheby's did well. The eight works consigned by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (including the Vereshchagin sold in Tuesday's Russian art sale) garnered a hammer total of $18.72 million, against a presale estimate of  $16.6- 24.3 million. Six of the seven works consigned by the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, sold, fetching a $9.4-million hammer total, against a presale estimate (for all seven) of $9.2-13.9 million. And the Menil Foundation's Ernst bronze (scroll down) doubled its high estimate, achieving a $1.2-million hammer total.

New auction records were achieved for Caillebotte ($18 million), Tamara de Lempicka ($8.48 million) and Maxime Maufra ($266,500, one of Boston's consignments). 

To view the full price list for Sotheby's sale, go here.

Bye-Bye "Back": David Norman, Sotheby's Impressionist/Modern co-chair, extols the virtues of Matisse's "Back I" during last week's press preview for the evening sales.

I was poised to compose a post deploring the four-sale, two-city (New York and London) dispersal through Sotheby's of Matisse's bronze reliefs, "The Backs" (scheduled to commence tonight), when the auction house issued this terse (but very welcome) announcement:

Yesterday afternoon, the Burnett Foundation withdrew Henri Matisse's masterpieces, "Les Nus de Dos" ("The Backs") from auction at Sotheby's, in order to conclude a private sale transaction brokered by Sotheby's on the entire group of four sculptures. Both the buyer and the purchase price will remain confidential.

I assume this means that the rescuer of this set was not a museum, unless the buyer will "remain confidential" only until after the transaction is concluded. Sotheby's had discreetly offered the entire set to a few select prospects before setting the planned auctions in motion.

[UPDATE: David Norman of Sotheby's confirmed to me after the conclusion of the Impressionist/Modern evening sale that the purchaser of "The Backs" was a private collector.]

According to Carol Vogel's previous NY Times report:

Dealers approached by the auction house reported that they [Sotheby's] were hoping for around $200 million for all four.

And now, this just in from Vogel:

People familiar with the deal say all four have been sold together for around $120 million.

The set of "Backs" consigned to Sotheby's had been on loan to the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, from 2001-11. A Kimbell spokesperson today told me that her museum is not the purchaser.

The awarding of this consignment to Sotheby's (rather than to rival Christie's) was a foregone conclusion: The president of the Burnett Foundation is Mrs. John Marion, whose husband is Sotheby's honorary chairman, its retired ace auctioneer, and a trustee of the foundation. The foundation will use the proceeds to "to support the community of Fort Worth," according to Sotheby's press release. It had acquired the reliefs from California mega-collector Norton Simon in 1982.

What I found problematic about this sale, aside from the lamentable sundering of a revelatory, sequential series that should always remain intact, was the involvement of MoMA's retired chief curator of painting and sculpture, John Elderfield, in helping to promote this affront to Matisse scholarship---a field in which his expertise is highly respected. The bravura coda to Elderfield's Matisse: Radical Invention show at MoMA was the array of the complete set of "Backs" casts that are owned by MoMA (and have now been returned to their customary perch on a wall of the museum's sculpture garden).

In its catalogue entry for "Back I," Sotheby's thanked Elderfield "for agreeing to the publication of this excerpt from his forthcoming monograph on Matisse's 'Backs,'" which provided potential purchasers with "a hitherto untold account [emphasis added] of how Matisse brought his first manifestaton of 'The Backs' into being."

Allowing his not yet published monograph to be used as an accessory to this planned (happily averted) dispersal was a courtesy that, on principle, Elderfield should have refused.

We can only hope that a similarly happy fate may yet befall the four Clyfford Still works entered in Sotheby's Contemporary sale next week. They are set to be sold separately, after a half-hearted attempt to find a single buyer, preferably a museum, for works that the late artist had stipulated were never to be sold. The group had been selected by Stlll Museum director Dean Sobel to represent the sweep of the artist's career, making them attractive to a museum. But Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's contemporary art head, told me at last week's press preview that he had argued strongly (apparently successfully) in favor of the auction option.

"Our job is to make a lot of money for them," he said, asserting that public auction was the best way to maximize the haul. Disposals that were originally intended to raise $25 million for the Still Museum's endowment are now aiming for a presale estimate of $51-71.5 million. Given yesterday's abyssmal auction results at Christie's, as well as the difficulty in gauging market demand for an artist whose works have rarely (by his own choice) been up for sale, perhaps $25 million (the amount guaranteed by the auction house) is a more realistic figure.

The Städel Museum, Frankfurt
Photo: Norbert Miguletz

Max Hollein, director of the Städel Museum, Frankfurt, responds to Städel Museum's Expansion, Nazi-Era History:

I understand that you might have gotten the impression of my being too hesitant answering your question about "What's next?" during our discussion about the research on the Städel's history during the Nazi era. However, just to clarify, there are obviously two aspects of this whole issue (which naturally are intertwined). One is the question of provenance research and restitution: The Städel has actually been one of the first, if not the first, museum in Germany to do this on a broad basis and has restituted several works throughout that process (and will continue to do so). In the book [Museum in Conflict: The Städel and National Socialism], there is as an appendix with a list of recent restitutions that took place from the Städel's collection.

Nevertheless, the research and the publication about the history of the Städel as an institution during the Nazi era is geared to and focused on something else. This is (and was) not mainly about the history of acquisitions but about the history of the institution itself---its politics, the actions taken (or not taken) by its staff and its activity before, during and after this particular time. I believe that this study (which has been carried out by researchers from the outside) is a (much applauded) model in regard to how to deal with this topic within the German institutional scene. The results are---as expected---ambiguous and the actions to be taken based on this research are not so direct as is the case with provenance research (and subsequent restitution).

Compared to the outcome of provenance research, it is a more intellectual question about how you deal with your findings on your own history and what conclusion you are taking based on thorough documentation and research of this time. Which makes the answer of the question "What's next?" less clearcut and more multifaceted. Our goal as an institution was first and foremost to be very open and as objective as possible about it and now, second, to have this era of our institution no longer eliminated from being reflected in our institutional history, in our collection display, etc. You will be able to see some results that stem from that in both our new presentation, when we reopen our modern collection in mid-November, and in the collection catalogues that will be published for that occasion.

The main point, however, is certainly awareness and showing an exemplary way on how to deal with laying out a museum's history during that particular time.

Here is the Städel's webpage listing works in its collection with incomplete Nazi-era provenances.

Expensive Failure: Degas' "Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans," executed in wax c. 1879-81 and cast in bronze "at a later date," as described in Christie's catalogue

The quote in my headline was uttered by Christie's struggling auctioneer, Christopher Burge, at the moment when he was poised to bring down the hammer on the star lot of this evening's Impressionist/Modern sale---Degas' bronze "Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans," unsold at $18.5 million against a presale estimate of $25-35 million. This was an ambitious estimate (as were, with 20-20 hindsight, more than half of the estimates in this sale). A Degas "Little Dancer" had sold at Sotheby's, London, in February 2009 for $19.2 million (including the buyer's premium).

The ballerina's awkward performance was "indeed" a "fair warning" of how the entire auction would stumble. The stranded dancer was the first of a string of expensive flops in an 82-lot massacre that ended with a mere 55% sold by dollar value, 62% sold by lot.

This must have been giving attendees traumatic flashbacks to the similarly dismal Fall 2008 Impressionist/Modern auctions, which occurred in the midst of the economic implosion triggered by the Lehman Brothers collapse.
The saleroom crowd was so deflated that even the evening's one resounding success---Max Ernst's 1941 "The Stolen Mirror," which sold for a robust $16.32 million (including the buyer's premium), elicited only murmurs, not applause. "Mirror" trounced the previous auction record for the artist---$4.42 million. Its hammer price was $14.5 million, againt a presale estimate of only $4-6 million.

 
Max Ernst, "The Stolen Mirror," 1941, $16.32 million

The Museum of Modern Art did barely okay with its deaccessioned Delvaux (scroll down) which fetched a hammer price of $5.8 million against a presale estimate of $6-9 million.

The hammer total for the sold works was $122.43 million, against the auction's total presale estimate of $211.9-305.35 million. The total with buyer's premium (which is not figured into presale estimates) was $140.77 million. 31 of the 82 lots failed to sell.

What will happen tomorrow night at Sotheby's? That house's experts had emphasized, at last week's press preview for the two evening auctions, that they had conservatively estimated what their star lots would fetch---a strategy to stimulate competitive bidding. Still, they may now be contacting consignors, encouraging them to lower their reserves (the prices below which the items won't sell), in light of the Debacle on 49th Street.

As for Christie's, its experts will likely be encouraging disappointed consignors to allow the auction house to play "Let's make a deal" with some of those whose bids didn't come up to snuff.

For the entire price list of tonight's sale (which excludes the works that failed to sell), go here.