Will an art collection cross the billion dollar symbolic barrier? By auctioning works belonging to late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in New York, auction house Christie’s is aiming for a historic record, symbol of a market in panic …
Will an art collection exceed the billion dollar symbolic bar? By auctioning works that belonged to the late Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, auction house Christie’s is aiming for a historic record, a symbol of a market that panics at the counters despite a world shaken by crises.
Less well known to the general public than Bill Gates, with whom he gave birth to Microsoft in 1975, Paul Allen was an all-round billionaire with a passion for pop culture, from Jimi Hendrix to Nirvana or Star Trek, whose objects he exhibited in his museum in Seattle (northwest), his hometown.
Owner of several sports franchises, such as the Seattle Seahawks, he had also amassed a substantial art collection, which he had loaned to museums before his death in 2018.
In 150 works, put on sale Wednesday and Thursday at Christie’s headquarters in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center, the set traces more than 500 years of art history, from Botticelli and Canaletto to Georgia O’Keeffe and Louise Bourgeois, passing through Claude Monet, Francis Bacon and Edward Hopper.
Unique, the assemblage is also unique in its value: several masterpieces are estimated at at least $ 100 million, such as Georges Seurat’s “Les Poseuses, Ensemble (petite version)” (1888), a pinnacle of pointillism, or a ” Montagne Sainte-Victoire “(1888-1890) by Paul Cézanne, who heralds Cubism.
There is also Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Orchard with Cypresses” or a painting from the Tahitian period by Paul Gauguin, “Motherhood II” (1899), which depicts his 17-year-old mistress, Pahura. This Tahitian period of Gauguin, one of the most sought after, has also become controversial due to the painter’s relationships with teenage girls when he was staying on the island.
Philanthropy
Although he had an argument with Bill Gates, Paul Allen signed his “Giving Pledge” in 2009 and all sales will go to charities. His sister Jody Allen, who heads the Paul Allen Foundation, has not given details on the works that will benefit from it.
Christie’s, controlled by François Pinault’s holding Artémis, however, hopes to mark the history of the art market with a total of over a billion dollars. It would be a new record, in the wake of the Macklowe collection, named after a wealthy couple from New York, which in the spring reached $ 922 million from competitor Sotheby’s.
With these sales, and that of Andy Warhol’s portrait of Marilyn Monroe “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn”, released in May for 195 million dollars, a record for a 20th century work, the current year could remain that of the most expensive of history.
Another iconic Warhol, “White Disaster [White Car Crash 19 Times]”(1963), which represents a car accident and of which only three exist in this monumental format, will be sold on November 16 at Sotheby’s, with an estimate of over $ 80 million.
The company, owned by Franco-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, will be auctioning for four days and says it expects the “greatest season ever”.
According to auction house experts, art is more than ever a safe investment in the eyes of the richest, in a difficult economic context, weighed down by the war in Ukraine and the risk of recession.
“Clients want to diversify their resources, take advantage of art and because they know that most works continue to increase in value over time,” Adrien Meyer, co-chair of the Impressionists Department, told AFP and Modern Art. by Christie’s.
“There are more billionaires than masterpieces” available on the market, he summarizes, and “the demand is very diverse.”
“We don’t see any signs of slowing down,” confirms Phillips auction house vice president Jeremiah Evarts, who nevertheless notes that “a large number of collectors look to the side of the 20th century and perhaps feel safer when buying a Picasso. a Chagall or a Magritte “, safe bets.
Phillips will put on sale in particular on November 15 a painting by Marc Chagall from 1911, “The father”, a work stolen by the Nazis and recently returned from France to the legitimate heirs, who have decided to separate from it.
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