The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Christie's is looking to break the $142.4 million auction record set by Francis Bacon's Three Studies of Lucian Freud. Christie;s will be offering Picasso's 1955 Women of Algiers (Version O) where it will be asking at least $140 million. The sale is planned for May.
The Wall Street Journal reports
Source: The Wall Street JournalChristie’s will try to make auction history this spring when it asks at least $140 million for Pablo Picasso’s 1955 “Women of Algiers (Version O),” the highest price tag ever placed on an artwork headed for auction.
Two years ago, the auction house set an $85 million price tag on a Francis Bacon triptych, “Three Studies of Lucian Freud,” and wound up selling it to casino developer Elaine Wynn for a record $142.4 million.
On May 11, in New York, the auction house will try to top that with the Picasso.
In the auction industry, an artwork’s estimate is often a reasonable starting point for interested bidders to offer even higher sums to win the work.
Christie’s said the seller of the Picasso remains anonymous, but the work last changed hands 18 years ago when the estate of U.S. collectors Victor and Sally Ganz sold it through the auction house to a London dealer for $31.9 million.
The painting is a riot of jewel-tone colors and features a scantily dressed woman whose face evokes Picasso’s former lover, Françoise Gilot.. She is joined by a disconnected tumble of other, smaller nudes who each seem to conjure other modern masterworks. The obvious muse is Eugène Delacroix’s 1834 scene of Algerian women in a fantasy interior. But Picasso also paints one of his nudes descending a staircase, a likely homage to Marcel Duchamp’s iconic painting of a similar subject. Other figures in Picasso’s tableau lounge at ground level like bulky bronzes by Henry Moore.
The overall effect is singularly Picasso, though, and his style and name brand enjoy a global appeal in today’s booming art market—which helps explain Christie’s hefty price tag.
The work comes from a 15-work series, designated by letters of the alphabet, that Picasso painted between late 1954 and early 1955. The entire group originally sold to the Ganz family for $212,500 and most were later resold separately for far more.
Christie’s said it plans to offer the Picasso as part of a group of a few dozen pieces spanning the 20th century that the house deems blue chip. These include works by Claude Monet, Mark Rothko and Martin Kippenberger. They will be offered in a stand-alone evening sale, called “Looking Forward to the Past,” to coincide with New York’s two-week series of major spring auctions in May.
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