Sunday, May 19, 2013
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Arts Grumbling begins over Picasso auction haul
Posted by Edie Adelstein on Wed, May 5, 2010 at 4:53 PM
According to an article that appeared in the New York Times yesterday, Pablo Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" broke a world record as the most expensive work of art ever sold at an auction.
- Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society, New York, via Christie's
- "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust"
The painting, which the article says "is considered a seminal work from a high point of Picasso's career," sold to an unidentified buyer for $106.5 million.
Today however, the Times' Holland Cotter published an unimpressed critique on the sale and the piece itself.
Cotter writes:
These days, there’s so much money in so many hands, and so many of those hands are after trophy art, that record-breaking has become routine, de rigueur.
A few months ago, Alberto Giacometti's "Walking Man I" bronze sculpture set the record at $104.3 million.
“Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” and other paintings from its period are old and easy, art as usual. They keep to the known, the pleasure zone; they keep old orders firm, artist over subject, man over woman, woman as thing, a pink blob with closed eyes.
Cotter's piece hints at the disappointment some art lovers feel in the piece. It's pretty, after all, but not a "Guernica" by any means. One reader commented: "If this exceptionally minor painting is worth $106.5 million, then what would a truly great painting, such as Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' go for? A trillion dollars?"
