The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Chrisite's will be estimating an Alberto Giacometti bronze "Pointing Man" (see image) for about $130 million in its upcoming auction. Keep in mind the bronze is 5' 10" tall.
If the price is realized, it would be a record for a sculpture. Only a few artists are in the $100 million+ club of sellers, with Giacometti have two sculptures selling in the past for just over $100 million each.
The Wall Street Journal reports
Source: The Wall Street JournalChristie’s will try to make auction history this spring when it asks around $130 million for a reedy bronze figure of a “Pointing Man” by Alberto Giacometti, the highest price tag ever placed on a sculpture headed for auction.
The price, if achieved, would establish a new high bar for a sculpture. A generation ago, prices for sculptures rarely attained the record levels set by paintings, which collectors prized more in part because they were unique. Bronze sculptures are often in editions of anywhere from six to 10.
Yet the current group of billionaire art buyers whose tastes dominate the art market seem eager to make extra room for three-dimensional art trophies: In the past five years, four Giacometti sculptures have sold for more than $50 million apiece, including his “Walking Man I,” which Sotheby’s sold for $103.9 million in 2010. Last fall, his sculpture of a “Chariot” sold at Sotheby’s for $100.9 million.
Only a handful of artists have attained a $100 million-plus sale for a single work of art—among them Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol—so Giacometti enjoys a rarified position as the priciest sculptor in this set.
Giacometti, who was born in Switzerland in 1901, gained a reputation for creating pinky-thin bronze figures whose blank stares and cryptic gestures seemed to capture the existential Everyman angst that pervaded Europe after the horrors of World War II.
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