Phillips de Pury Sale, Halsey Minor and Provenance

Bloomberg has a good but short article about Friday's contemporary art sale at Phillips in New York.  The interesting aspect is the sale had numerous lots from the collection of Halsey Minor, founder of Cnet and other technology companies (some of his purchases and legal issues have been covered here on the AW Blog).  Minor was selling at Philips in order to pay off creditors.  His art alone totaled $21..1 million of the $37.9 million total from the sale. Philips offered 77 lots of which 22 were from Minor.

Several art experts stated the Minor collection was good, but as the collection was only recently established, the ownership of Minor and his reputation as a serious collector did not directly  the impact the value of his offered lots at Phillips.  Todd Levin, director of New York-based advisers, Levin Art Group stated a new collection of only about 5 years such as Minor's has not been sufficiently established to impact value.

The article states

“He’s got a good eye,” said John Good, a director at Gagosian gallery in New York. “Between Prince, Newson and Ruscha, these are A pieces.”

Proceeds from the sale of Minor’s artworks will go toward a $21.6 million judgment obtained in October by ML Private Finance, a Bank of America affiliate, on a delinquent loan to Minor.

The Minor collection is too young for provenance to contribute to artworks’ value, said Todd Levin, director of New York-based advisers, Levin Art Group.

“It matters when it’s an established collection. When a collection was put together in the past five years, the provenance is moot,” he said.

Fashion designer Marc Jacobs, art dealer Larry Gagosian and jeweler Laurence Graff attended the auction, held in Phillips’s packed Chelsea salesroom. The mood was businesslike, but void of the party-like atmosphere of a typical Phillips sale.

To read the full article, click HERE.