|
|
|
|
|
INSULTS FLY THRU TIME
Hard to believe, but sculptor, Pietro Torrigiano, broke Michelangelo's nose in an argument over an third artist's work. Torrigiano was not charged with assault, just exiled to England.
About Raphael, Michelangelo is rumored to have said, "Everything he knew, he learned from me." (he may have stole it)
Poor Renoir . . .
Manet told Monet to tell Renoir to give up painting because he had no talent. Matisse also told Renoir, "Your kind of painting is not the kind of painting I like."
Picasso's temper . . .
Picasso and Giacometti were good friends, but they had terrible tempers and admitted they didn't like each other's work. Picasso was outspoken about many artists of his time, mostly critical.
Degas was outspoken . . .
He said about Toulouse-Lautrec, "was not an idiot, but merely a painter of the period who wouldn't last." Degas said about Seurat"s work, "I wouldn't have noticed it except that it is so big."
More barbs . . .
Willem de Kooning said of Jackson Pollock, "He was out in the wilderness eating John Brown's body." Pollock called de Kooning a "French painter," a derogatory comment at the time.
Pollock once picked a fight with Franz Kline and when Kline hit him, he pulled him into a clinch and said, "Not so hard, Franz."
These and other stories can be found in a feature article by Milton Esterow in the May 2000 issue of the magazine, ARTnews or on their website.
-------------------------
Incredible Value Appreciation
Other works from the Russell estate brought astonishing prices. A Matisse sculpture, "Reclining Nude I (Dawn)," conceived in 1907 and cast in 1912, was expected to fetch $2 million to $3 mill; it sold to an unidentified telephone bidder for $9.2 million, a record for a sculpture by the artist.
Another sculpture from the Russell estate matched the artist's record. Henry Moore's "Two-Piece Reclining Figure: Points," a 1969 abstract sculpture, was estimated at $2 million to $3 million; it sold for $4 million to Larry Gagosian, the Manhattan dealer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
RECORD AUCTION PRICE
A Picasso painting, a 1932 portrait of the artist's mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter asleep with her arms stretched over her head, was one of 12 works being sold from the estate of Madeleine Haas Russell, one of San Francisco's most important philanthropists.
Mrs. Russell, who died in April at age 84, was a great-grandniece of Levi Strauss, and the Picasso was the crown jewel in her collection.
Painted in just one day -- March 9, 1932 -- it is the first in a series of portraits of Walter that the artist made that year while he was living in Boisgeloup, a village outside Paris.
At 65 by 53 inches, the painting is the largest of these works, and the most sensual. Over the last four years, Christie's has sold two other Picasso portraits of Walter painted the same year.
"The Mirror" was sold in 1995 for $20 million, and "The Dream," from the estate of the New York collectors Victor and Sally Ganz, fetched $48.4 million in 1997, more than the painting sold on Tuesday night.
The minute "Nude on a Black Armchair" sold, speculation about the buyer began. Many said Stephen A. Wynn, the casino owner who has founded a mini-museum at Bellagio in Las Vegas, was the buyer. Others weren't so sure.
On a Wednesday night, Sotheby's auctioned a $40 million Picasso: "Seated Woman in a Garden" (1938), showing another of Picasso's mistresses, Dora Maar, regally seated on a thronelike chair surrounded by naïvely rendered flowers.
It is part of a 20th-century art collection from the estate of Eleanore B. and Daniel Saidenberg, the Manhattan gallery owners who represented Picasso in the United States.
THE DETAILS of the BIDDING !
It usually takes only two big spenders to push the price of an artwork to stratospheric levels, but three determined telephone bidders declared war on Tuesday night at Christie's sale of 20th-century art.
So eager were they to take home Picasso's "Nude on a Black Armchair" that they were still fighting it out at $36 million.
In the end, the winner paid $45.1 million, nicely above Christie's high estimate of $40 million. So tense was the bidding that the salesroom burst into applause when the winner was finally declared.
__________________________________
ARTIST EGOS ON PARADE
The fact that artists are afflicted with the same universal shortcomings of man, should come as no surprise. Egos of men who try to excel in any field are usually very prominent and easily bruised.
Pride, the desire to be the best, and the financial rewards that are available to the people at the top are all driving forces behind man's "no holds barred" ego displays.
In modern-day, professional sports, we see a recent example of this timeless attribute from its outspoken stars.
|
|
|
|
|
|
