Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

Here are the just-released facts and figures, hot off Sotheby's presses: The 1950 Rothko, "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)," at $72.84 million (including buyer's premium), set a record not only for the artist but also for any contemporary work at auction. (The previous Rothko record was $22.42 million.) Since David Rockefeller stated that he was going to donate … [Read more...] about Sotheby’s Contemporary: Official Tallies of a Record-Studded Sale

Francis Bacon's "Study of Innocent X" has just gone for $47 million (hammer price); estimated at "more than $30 million." Stay tuned for Pollock next. First big buy-in of the night: Pollock's "Number 16, 1949," unsold at $17.5 million against an estimate of $18-25 million. Stayed tuned for Rockefeller's Rothko next. Rockefeller's Rothko sells for $65 million hammer price, … [Read more...] about Blogging the Sotheby’s Contemporary Sale

Just a reminder: You can watch the auction action tonight, as I will, from the comfort of the computer screen. "The Price is Right" starts at 7 p.m., Eastern Auction Time. If you really want to watch the paint dry, you can view the countdown to zero-hour on the already live link on Sotheby's website. Can we stand the suspense? My friendly colleague Lindsay Pollock of Bloomberg … [Read more...] about Live from York Avenue: “Can You Top This?” with Tobias Meyer as Host

As Tyler Green has just commented, it's about time that the J. Paul Getty Trust added some trustees with art expertise. Unfortunately, two of its three new appointees (announced here)---Paul LeClerc and Neil Rudenstine---have the wrong kind of art experience: They were the prime movers in the New York Public Library's deplorable disposal of Asher B. Durand's "Kindred Spirits": … [Read more...] about NYPL’s Durand Dumpers Named to Getty’s Board

Sotheby's officials may think they deserve all the credit for snaring David Rockefeller's Rothko (above), estimated to bring more than $40 million at tonight's auction. But I think it was really all about CultureGrrl's karma: "Number one in sales does not mean number one in profits," Bill Ruprecht, Sotheby's president and CEO was telling me, during a wide-ranging interview … [Read more...] about How Sotheby’s Got that Rothko (and How CultureGrrl Didn’t Get that Story)

In case you like your news on paper instead of online, my Tricks of the Auction Trade is on page D5 of today's Wall Street Journal. It's accompanied by a clever but potentially misleading illustration (above), showing the successful buyer of tonight's Rothko trying to pay for it with the coupons that were issued as part of the $512-million auction-house antitrust settlement. … [Read more...] about My WSJ Article, and More on Auction-House Coupons

UPDATE: Here's tomorrow's piece, today! Look for my piece on the state of the art-auction business on the "Leisure & Arts" page of tomorrow's Wall Street Journal, informed by long interviews with the presidents of both Sotheby's and Christie's. I will also update this post with a link to the piece, once it's up on the website. Now you know why I've been uncharacteristically … [Read more...] about My Auction Article in Tomorrow’s WSJ

Just to be annoying, I have now clicked on every one of the NY Times blogs that can be accessed through its tiny blogs link near the bottom of its homepage. I can now report that ArtsBeat is the only ongoing blog that hasn't updated in recent days. (Its last entry was on Apr. 30.) At least they have prudently changed their self-description from "all culture, all the time" … [Read more...] about NY Times Watch: Does ArtsBeat Have a Pulse? Does Ephron Have Op-Ed Cred?

Although the press release issued Thursday by the J. Paul Getty Museum, was noncommittal, Sharon Waxman reported in Saturday's NY Times that the first meeting of the panel of experts assembled by the museum to provide more information about its Cult Statue of a Goddess brought the Getty "a step closer to relinquishing ownership of one of its most prized artifacts." The statue … [Read more...] about Scientific Panel on the Getty’s “Aphrodite” (or Whoever) Convenes

David Rockefeller opened his mouth to Bloomberg about the secret Glenn Lowry compensation-sweetener, and admitted that one mistake was made. Actually, David, there were two. Patrick Cole reports: Rockefeller said he had no regrets about setting up a trust with MoMA board member Agnes Gund that paid Director Glenn D. Lowry $5.35 million in addition to his museum … [Read more...] about Lowry Compensation: Rockefeller Acknowledges One of the Two Mistakes

This just in, via press release, from Fort Worth: The Amon Carter Museum will eliminate admission fees to special exhibitions when it reopens this fall, providing free access to all of the museum's galleries and enabling greater public access to one of the country's finest museums of American art. The museum will be temporarily closed beginning May 21 to undergo repairs to the … [Read more...] about What’s a Museum Visit Worth in Fort Worth?

Thomas Jefferson University, Fisk, and now the Maier Museum? According to a report yesterday by Christa Desrets of the Lynchburg, VA, News & Advance, a Randolph College spokesperson confirmed that its museum, strong in 19th- and 20th-century American works, is appraising some of its art as part of a review all of the school's assets. The spokesperson, Brenda Edson, said that … [Read more...] about The Thomas Jefferson University Effect?

Christie's went out on a limb in its presale press release for tonight's Impressionist/Modern sale, predicting that Gris' "Le Pot de Géranium" and Signac's "Arrière du Tub" (the cover lot) would break those artists' auction records. They did: The Signac brought $11.69 million (with buyers premium). The Gris went for $18.52 million doubling the artist's previous auction record … [Read more...] about Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Sale: Solid Results Continue

With all the talk about outsized salaries for alpha male museum directors, let's highlight a different issue: unequal pay for women. I'm talking specifically about the woman who since 1982 has ably directed the Philadelphia Museum, Anne d'Harnoncourt (above). The on P. 13 of the current issue of The Art Newspaper, you can find the results of their 2006 international survey of … [Read more...] about Let’s Have Salary Parity for Anne d’Harnoncourt!

It's a little like being caught wearing the same dress as someone else at the party: Carol Vogel and I led our stories about Sotheby's Imp/Mod auction with the identical Tobias Meyer quote, "It's a new world." Although Carol didn't say so, he meant "a new world record," not that a breakout price for Feininger was a world-shattering (or even an auctionworld-shattering) … [Read more...] about Coverage of the Sotheby’s Sale: Great Minds Quote Alike