One bright spot at Sotheby’s: Steve Wynn’s Picasso brings $41.5 million
Las Vegas titan Steve Wynn sold Picasso’s 1932 painting “Still Life with Tulips” at Sotheby’s on Thursday night for a robust sum of $41.5 million.
The last time the work was sold publicly was in 2000 at Christie’s New York, where it brought $28.6 million, but the winning bidder then was not believed to be Wynn.
INTERACTIVE: At the auction house - Guess the price
The painting--featuring a white, gold and green palette against a dark background--served as one of the few bright spots in Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist and modern material in New York.
In a week marked by drops in the financial markets and disappointing sales (also lack of sales) at both of the big New York auction houses, Sotheby’s auction on Thursday brought only $163 million, a few million dollars short of what the firm projected and $36 million less than last November’s evening sale.
Still, Marie-Therese Walther remains the it-girl of the ultra-high-end art market. In his 1932 painting, “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” which set a record for the artist by selling for $106.5 million at Christie’s, Picasso pictured her in a state of voluptuous repose, with green leaves in the background mimicking her curves and a Grecian bust nearby echoing her facial features.
In “Still Life with Tulips” from the same feverish year, Picasso put a quasi-classical marble bust made in her image at the painting’s center, giving it a sort of cartoonish gigantism familiar to fans of the artist.
MORE:
CRITIC’S PICKS: Fall Arts Preview
TIMELINE: John Cage’s Los Angeles
PHOTOS: Arts and culture in pictures
More to Read
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
