Picasso sale in New York breaks records

It is, as they say, not bad for a day’s work! A painting created by Pablo Picasso on a single day in March 1932 sold at a Christie’s auction recently for a mind-boggling $106.5 million.

The painting, entitled “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” and featuring one of the artist’s lovers, Marie-Thérèse Walter, broke through the ceiling set only a few weeks ago by Alberto Giacometti’s “Walking Man I” which sold for $104.3 million, a total that even the most insanely optimistic art critics would have imagined would stand for a few years at least.

Over a tense eight minutes and six seconds the bidding rose higher and higher, leading to some audible gasps from the spectators as the final sum was announced by Nicholas Hall, of Christie’s Old Master paintings department in New York. The painting was released for sale by the estate of philanthropist Frances Lasker Brody, who died last November but the purchaser, not surprisingly given the worth of the painting, wished to remain anonymous.

Considered one of Picasso’s most important works by art experts, “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” attracted so much interest from foreign markets that even the experts at Christie’s were surprised.

Christie’s CEO, Edward Dolman, said, “The market is much stronger than we expected, with depth of buying from Russia, China and the Middle East.” According to Mr. Dolman, most works of this calibre are sought largely by buyers outside the United States.

This sale not only confirms Picasso’s enduring popularity as one of the twentieth century’s most important artists, it proves that a prestigious work of art is capable of attracting the kind of bids that didn’t seem possible even less than a decade ago.

As with all of the finer things in life, it seems that there is no substitute for quality.

New post on at Wednesday, 19 May, 2010, 9:58 am and is archived in Art, Lifestyle, Luxury, People. Subscribe to answers with RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.