A cash-strapped countess is suing a British art dealer, saying he shortchanged her by millions of dollars on the sale of a painting by Dutch marine master Willem van de Velde. Lesley Joan Viscountess Hambleden and her late husband William Herbert Smith — the Fourth Viscount Hambleden — asked former Sotheby’s specialist Timothy Sammons to […]
Jim Carrey Shocks Viewers With His Amazing Art Talents in Mini Documentary
Even NBA star LeBron James said he was blown away and wants to talk to the actor more about his craft. Jim Carrey has always been full of surprises. The actor has been a household name for more than two decades thanks to his larger-than-life characters. However, the 55-year-old has another exceptional talent — he […]
Investigator “100 percent sure” stolen art from legendary heist is in Ireland
Twenty-seven years later, it’s still a mystery. The biggest art heist in history, thieves targeted some of the highest-value art from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, leaving behind empty frames, tied-up security guards and few clues. The 13 stolen masterpieces valued at around half-a-billion dollars included a Rembrandt and a Vermeer, reports CBS News correspondent […]
Castello di Rivoli Acquires Francesco Federico Cerruti’s $570 Million Collection
Castello di Rivoli, the contemporary art museum housed in a newly renovated castle in Turin, announced that it has entered a special partnership with the Fondazine Francesco Federico Cerruti. The museum will absorb the roughly $570 million Cerruti Collection—comprising around three hundred paintings and sculptures as well as several hundred rare books, from the Middle […]
Christie’s to Sell David Rockefeller Estate for Charity with $700 M. Estimate, Aiming to Break Record for Most Valuable Collection Ever Auctioned
After decades housed partially in the complex that bears its name, the collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller will be sold to the highest bidder at Rockefeller Center. Christie’s announced today that in spring 2018, the house will auction off 2,000 items belonging to David Rockefeller—the last living grandson of formational American industrialist John D. […]
Record-Breaking $110.5 M. Basquiat Shocks Attendees at Sotheby’s $319.2 M. Postwar and Contemporary Evening Sale
As auctioneer Oliver Barker put it, “Now he goes into the pantheon.” Jean-Michel Basquiat became the most expensive American artist ever sold at auction Thursday when an azure-and-black untitled skull painting from 1982 was bought by the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa for $110.5 million after a ten-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s Postwar and Contemporary Evening Sale. The […]
At Christie’s $289 M. Impressionist-Modern Sale, $57.4 M. Brancusi Smashes Artist’s Record
The New York auctions began last night with an Impressionist and modern evening sale at Christie’s Rockefeller Center salesroom that totaled $289 million, handily eclipsing its low estimate of $207 million and falling just short of its $307 million high estimate. “It’s the best Impressionist and modern sale in New York in seven years,” said Guillaume Cerutti, the Christie’s […]
A Muse Mentored: Art by Farrah Fawcett Goes on View in Texas
A legendary red swimsuit poster that sold in the millions and her role as a fetching detective on Charlie’s Angels established Farrah Fawcett as a sex symbol of the 1970s—long-limbed, feather-haired, often beaming with a thousand-watt smile. Despite a lengthy and interesting career—particularly her tough, enigmatic turns as different women reacting to the madness of […]
A New Crossroads in Moscow: Garage Museum Launches the First Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art
Bottles of vodka zipped around the tiny, jam-packed room in downtown Moscow, passing from hand to hand like buckets of water in a slapstick fire drill. What began as a modest birthday fete on the third floor of the Marriott Grand Hotel had become the unofficial after-party for the first Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art, […]
David Rockefeller, Avid Collector and Honorary MoMA Chairman, Dies at 101
David Rockefeller, a philanthropist who donated significant works to the Museum of Modern Art and who, in his years as chairman and then honorary chairman of its board, dramatically enlarged the museum’s endowment, died this morning at his home in Poncatino Hills, New York. He was 101. Much of Rockefeller’s art-world legacy has been cemented by […]