The Tamesis
Christie’s New York will unveil 16 top works by giants of the 20th and 21st centuries next month, all from the collection of the late publishing magnate and Condé Nast head SI (also known as Si) Newhouse, who died in 2017. On May 18, the auction room at Rockefeller Center was packed with people, including masterpieces by Francis Bacon, Jasper Johns, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Pablo and other artists. Picasso and Andy Warhol were coming to the neighborhood. The group expects the total sale price to be about $450 million, a huge sum in any market, but at a turbulent time for the art market and the global economy, it is a huge sum indeed.
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Among this stratospheric group, Picasso’s Cubist canvas is individually valued at up to $100 million guitarist (1913), estimated at $35 million to $55 million, is notable because Newhouse paid more than just cash to own it.
Twenty-six years ago, Newhouse actually chose it over the powerful seat he had long held on the board of the Museum of Modern Art in New York when the museum sold it to raise funds for the acquisition, before he controversially acquired it for a reported $10 million. As a board member, Newhouse was prohibited by museum policy from purchasing works the museum was selling. When museum officials confronted him about it, he resigned, new york post reported at the time.
Let’s review the painting’s fascinating and starry provenance. In 1913, legendary dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler sold it to literary giant Gertrude Stein. When she died in 1968, it was taken over by a group of powerful collectors known as the MoMA Syndicate, formed with the express purpose of purchasing Stein’s estate. The group, which included Nelson Rockefeller and John Hay Whitney, pledged to donate some of the works to the museum. But the syndicate sold guitarist That same year, French-American New York investment banker André Meyer was elected.
Pablo Picasso, guitarist (1913).
A year after Meyer’s death in 1979, it was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and was considered such a privilege that it was soon displayed in the 1980 Picasso retrospective. and Exhibition of Collected Masterpieces 1980-81. It also hung in the 1988-89 Picasso exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm and in the seminal Museum of Modern Art exhibition “Picasso and Braque: Pioneers of Cubism,” curated by William S. Rubin and co-organized with the Kunstmuseum Basel.
With such recognition, guitarist One might expect it to remain in a museum collection forever, or even hang prominently on a wall, but this is not the case. The museum often sells works from its collection, sometimes works that are not first rate or are considered redundant, to raise funds for new collections, and in 2000 the museum put the painting up for auction.
A spokesman for the Museum of Modern Art told the media: “We have a large collection of Picasso works.” postal At the time, “the curators considered the work not absolutely necessary for the collection.”
A “big dealer” acquired the piece and sold it to Newhouse new york post The sale price is reportedly $10 million. (this postal Mentioned that Gagosian helped Newhouse build his collection. )
“This is believed to be the first time a trustee has been involved in a conflict over insider sales rules for art,” the publication noted. The publication noted that Newhouse had served on the institution’s board for about 27 years, working alongside industry giants such as Leon Black, Ronald Lauder and David Rockefeller, and raising tens of millions of dollars for the institution.
“People died to be on the board,” one dealer told the Wall Street Journal. postal then. “He really wanted the Picasso – he didn’t care what it said about him.”
Somehow, Newhouse survived his resignation from the board. As Christie’s points out, between 1999 and 2005 alone, he acquired important works by Constantin Brancusi, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Alberto Giacometti, Matisse, Joan Miro, and Vincent van Gogh, as well as other works by Picasso.
At least one piece of art from the Newhouse collection has become world-renowned. 2019 by Jeff Koons rabbit (1986) set a new record for Koons and all living artists, a record that still stands today when it sold for $91.1 million for $539 million. Where? in the Christie’s Rockefeller Center auction room.
