Auction Thriller: Michael Crichton's Private Art Collection at Christie's

An encaustic Stars and Stripes painting entitled Flag made between 1960-1966 by U.S. artist Jasper Johns. From the private collection of late American author Michael Crichton. [Credit: AP/Lefteris Pitarakis]

LONDON — American author Michael Crichton was well-known for his best-selling novels and popular television shows, but he was also a private and passionate art collector. Crichton, the man behind Jurassic Park and ER, died of cancer in November 2008 at the age of 66. He left behind an impressive art collection of 20th century masterworks worth an estimated $32 million. The lot will be up for auction at Christie's New York on May 11.

Crichton's collection includes works by Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. Four of the pieces went on display at Christie's London on Friday and will be on view until February 12.

The star of the show is the iconic Flag of 1960-1966, one of a series of paintings by American Abstract Expressionist artist Jasper Johns. The piece once hung in Crichton's Beverly Hills bedroom and hasn't been seen publicly since he purchased it directly from the artist in 1974. Crichton was considered such an authority on Johns that the artist asked him to write the catalog for a 1977 retrospective. The last Johns flag painting sold at auction fetched $12.1 million in 1989.

"I never really cared whether a particular piece was major or minor, typical or atypical of the artist's work, or whether the artist was fully or thinly represented in my collection," Crichton wrote of his art collecting philosophy. "I just bought images that I enjoyed looking at."

[Source: AP]
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Auction Thriller: Michael Crichton's Private Art Collection at Christie's

Art of Steel: Jeff Koons to Create BMW Art Car

The concept of the BMW Art Car was introduced by Hervé Poulain, an auctioneer and ardent racing driver from France who was searching for a link between art and cars; he asked his friend renowned artist Alexander Calder to paint the first example in 1975.

VIDEO: Learn about the history of the BMW Art Car and watch as Pop artist Andy Warhol paints his 1979 model.

NEW YORK — Jeff Koons, the American artist known for his balloon sculptures of steel, has been chosen to create the 17th version of the BMW Art Car in the 35th anniversary year of the program. The announcement was made at the artist's New York City studio on Tuesday.

"I look forward to participate in a tradition set forth by such great artists as Calder, Lichtenstein, Stella, and Warhol," said Koons, whose design will be revealed later this year. The most recent Art Car was done by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson in 2007.

BMW board member, Frank-Peter Arndt said, "Our company and Jeff Koons are drawn to permanent innovation and cutting-edge technology. Since 1975, artists from throughout the world have turned BMW automobiles into art signifying a particular period through the Art Car program."

Jim O'Donnell, President of BMW North America added, "The entire BMW Group is looking forward to this celebration of contemporary art by Jeff Koons, one of the greatest artists of our time."

Many of the BMW Art Cars have been exhibited in renowned museums throughout the world including the Louvre, the Guggenheim and the Shanghai Art Museum. 

[Source: PR Newswire]

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Art of Steel: Jeff Koons to Create BMW Art Car

Pop Artist Arrested for Tiger Woods Gatorade Stunt

A Colorado artist was arrested Wednesday for replacing Gatorade labels with his own "pop art" version; the labels feature a picture of Tiger Woods, his wife Elin Nordegren and the word "Unfaithful".

DENVER — "Good for Gatorade and good for art" - that's the pitch Colorado artist Jason Kay emailed to parent company PepsiCo before being arrested Wednesday. The 38-year-old Kay thought his "pop art" Gatorade labels would "get people talking about how stupid the whole thing with Tiger Woods is," but instead the artist faces a maximum of five years in prison and up to $450,000 in fines.

The unemployed Kay replaced the labels on one-quart bottles of Tropical Mango Gatorade with his own version; a picture of Tiger Woods, his wife Elin Nordegren and the word "unfaithful" printed in bold black capital letters. Kay then snuck the bottles back onto shelves at various stores in the Denver area.

According to an affidavit filed by the Food and Drug Administration, Kay told federal agents, "I didn't think this was a big deal." Kay compares the Gatorade bottle labels to pop art and claims the stunt was his attempt at emulating Andy Warhol. In fact, Kay was hoping to work out a partnership with the beverage firm wherein they would "participate unofficially (while denying this connection) by providing support to [Kay] for travel and per diem in various cities."

Gatorade was a major sponsor of Tiger Woods but ended their endorsement after news of the golfer's alleged infidelities broke in December. Kay has been charged with misbranding and altering food labels with intent to seriously harm a person's business.
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Pop Artist Arrested for Tiger Woods Gatorade Stunt

Top Ten Art Auction Sales of 2009

With only a couple of days remaining in 2009, writers everywhere are compiling all sorts of Top Rankings for the past year, spanning categories from music to movies to art.

This week, Bloomberg published a list of the Top 10 art auction sales for 2009. And although the economy took a turn for the worse this year, these million dollar sales give hope to an already struggling art market.

The Top 10 Art Auction Sales of 2009 (in descending order):

1) Raphael, "Head of a Muse" (1508-11), chalk drawing on paper.

Sold Dec. 8 at Christies, London - $47.6 million.

2) Henri Matisse, "Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose" (1911), oil painting on canvas.
Sold Feb. 23 at Christie's, Paris - $45.6 million.


3) Andy Warhol, "200 One Dollar Bills" (1962), silkscreen ink and pencil on canvas.
Sold Nov. 11 at Sotheby's, New York - $43.8 million.

4) Constantin Brancusi, "Madame L.R. (Portrait de Mme L.R.)" (1914-17), sculpture on wood.
Sold Feb. 23 at Christie's, Paris - $37.1 million.


5) Rembrandt van Rijn, "Portrait of a Man with Arms Akimbo" (1658), oil painting on canvas.
Sold Dec. 8 at Christie's, London - $32.9 million.


6) Eileen Gray, "Fauteuil aux Dragons" (1917-19), sculpted wood armchair upholstered in leather.
Sold Feb. 24 at Christie's, Paris - $28.1 million.

7) Piet Mondrian, "Composition avec bleu, rouge, jaune et noir" (1922), oil painting on canvas.
Sold Feb. 23 at Christie's, Paris - $27.4 million.

8) Wu Bin, "Eighteen Arhats" (1615), hand scroll in ink and color on paper.
Sold Nov. 24 at Poly International Auction Co., Beijing - $25 million.

9) Alberto Giacometti, "L'homme qui chavire" (1950), painted sculpture in bronze.
Sold Nov. 4 at Sotheby's, New York - $19.4 million.

10) Edgar Degas, "Petite danseuse de quatorze ans" (1881), sculpture in bronze.
Sold Feb. 3 at Sotheby's, London - $19.2 million.

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Top Ten Art Auction Sales of 2009

Hugh Oughta Know Better Than to Take Art for Grant(ed)

NEW YORK — In 2001, we all watched as Hugh Grant vied for Bridget Jones's affection. In the same year, the British actor also competed for an Andy Warhol painting up for auction. But to Grant's "horror" - as he puts it - he ended up with the winning bid.

So why did the actor bid on a painting that he didn't want in the first place? Alcohol. "It all began with drink," Grant said.

After a two-day drunken binge, Grant ordered an assistant to bid on Warhol's 1963 portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, simply entitled Liz. "I'd been having a drunken dinner with my father the night before, and I said, 'We ought to go see my brother Jamie. You know, the Concorde's amazing.' And he said, 'I hear it is.' So I bought him a Concorde ticket and we went," Grant explained. "We had lunch, drank a lot of beer. And I was thinking about some stuff in the Sotheby's auction and I saw the Liz Taylor."

His assistant, simply following his intoxicated orders, bid on the piece. And "even worse" - she won. Luckily for him, Grant eventually sold the painting for $21-million in 2007; his $3.25-million investment earning an $18-million profit. Is Grant an actor turned art connoisseur? Even he admits, he's not even close.
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Read More - Hugh Grant: 'I was drunk when I bought Elizabeth Taylor painting that made £11million profit' | Daily Mail

[Image: “Liz” (1963) by Andy Warhol.]

Hugh Oughta Know Better Than to Take Art for Grant(ed)

Top ART News: Week In Review | Nov. 8 - Nov. 15

■ Visiting the Louvre - There's an App for That! | PARIS (11/08/09) — Not only is there an App for just about everything, there's just about everything in the Louvre museum Carrousel shopping center. Thus, on Saturday, Apple opened its first retail store in France (the 277th in ten countries), underneath the Tuileries garden and great glass pyramid in the Louvre... More >

■ Oxford's Ashmolean Museum Reopens After 10 Months and $100 Million | OXFORD, ENGLAND (11/08/09) — After 10-months and an almost $100 million renovation, Oxford's Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology reopened to the public on Saturday. The world's first university museum, the Ashmolean has added 39 new galleries, including four temporary exhibition galleries, a new education center and state-of-the art conservation studios... More >

■ MoMA Designs a Bauhaus Retrospective | NEW YORK, NY (11/09/09) — From architecture, industrial design, textiles and furniture, to graphics, painting and sculpture, the 20th century art movement known as the Bauhaus continues to influence our modern world (all one has to do browse the latest IKEA catalog for examples). In its first major exhibition dedicated to the Bauhaus since 1938, the Museum of Modern Art is celebrating the extraordinary artists, architects and designers of the avant-garde school... More >

■ Extreme Makeover: King Tut's Tomb Edition | CAIRO (11/10/09) — Disturbing brown spots are forming on the walls in the famous tomb of Egypt's most popular pharaoh, King Tutankhamen (better known as King Tut). The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) are embarking on a new preservation project aimed at assessing the damage. On Tuesday, the two entities announced a new 5-year partnership in which they will work together to analyze and conserve the ancient burial site... More >

■ Bidding War Over '200 One Dollar Bills' Ends at $43.76 Million | NEW YORK, NY (11/11/09) — The art market may still be suffering, but a successful contemporary art auction on Wednesday night indicates a rebound is  on the horizon. A surprise bidding war between five potential buyers broke out when Sotheby's brought Andy Warhol's 200 One Dollar Bills (1962) up to the auction block... More >

■ Ciao MAXXI! Contemporary Art Museum Opens in Italy | ROME, ITALY (11/13/09) — The vision most of us see when we think of a museum in Italy is a Renaissance or Baroque-style palace or cathedral, a Medici-commissioned structure, with classical columns, frescoes on the ceiling and gilding as far as the eye can see. The National Museum of the XXI Century Arts (or MAXXI for short) opening Saturday in Rome hopes to change that perception... More >

■ Munch Art Heist Was Well-Planned, Oslo Police Say | OSLO, NORWAY(11/13/09)  — Perhaps it's the miserable, tortuous scenes in the artwork of Edvard Munch that makes it attractive to the criminal element. The Symbolist painter's most famous agony-laden image, The Scream, was stolen on the same day as the opening ceremony of the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics. In 2004, another version of The Scream and the Madonna were both taken from Oslo's Munch Museum. And on Thursday, a man smashed the window of the Nyborg Kunst art gallery in Oslo and snatched Edvard Munch's Historien... More >

■ Mona Lisa's Eyebrows Were Tweezed and 24 Other Startling Revelations | MANCHESTER, ENGLAND (11/14/09) — What's behind Mona Lisa's mysterious gaze? Art historians and scholars have been trying to answer that question for centuries. No one will ever know for sure, but scientists have discovered answers to other questions about Leonardo da Vinci's famous gal. Da Vinci - The Genius, a new exhibit at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), presents a comprehensive exploration behind the genius of the Italian Renaissance master... More >

■ Manolo Blahniks Under $70? Only at the RCA Secret Sale! | LONDON (11/14/09) — Pssst... the Royal College of Art has a secret. It's selling artwork by some of the world's most renowned artists for just under $70. And if you register in time, you can get in on this exclusive sale. Now in it's 16th year, RCA Secret is an annual contemporary art exhibition and sale which offers original postcard-sized artworks, made and donated by professional artists, designers, illustrators and postgraduate art students... More >

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Top ART News: Week In Review | Nov. 8 - Nov. 15

Ciao MAXXI! Contemporary Art Museum Opens in Italy

ROME, ITALY — The vision most of us see when we think of a museum in Italy is a Renaissance or Baroque-style palace or cathedral, a Medici-commissioned structure, with classical columns, frescoes on the ceiling and gilding as far as the eye can see. The National Museum of the XXI Century Arts (or MAXXI for short) opening Saturday in Rome hopes to change that perception.

The MAXXI, a $223 million museum built in a residential area of the city, was created to promote 21st century art and architecture. The museum's collection includes works by contemporary artists like Ed Ruscha, Anish Kapoor, William Kentridge, Gerard Richter and Andy Warhol. The building is located on a 312,000 square foot campus which includes an auditorium, library, media library, study rooms, laboratories, a bookshop, cafe and spaces for live events and commercial activities.

"The walls of the MAXXI create major streams and minor streams," explained Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid, who designed the modern museum. "The major streams are the galleries and the minor streams are the connections and the bridges." Hadid was the first woman to win the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize (2004) and her other designs include the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio (1998) and the BMW Central Building in Leipzig, Germany (2005). "I see MAXXI as an immersive urban environment for the exchange of ideas, feeding the cultural vitality of the city," she said.

This weekend, the MAXXI will open for just two-days, providing an "architectural preview" before the grand opening scheduled for February 2010.
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Read More - Italy Opens a New Contemporary Arts Museum | AP
[Photo: MAXXI exterior, via MAXXI Flickr page]

Ciao MAXXI! Contemporary Art Museum Opens in Italy

Bidding War Over '200 One Dollar Bills' Ends at $43.76 Million

NEW YORK, NY — The art market may still be suffering, but a successful contemporary art auction on Wednesday night indicates a rebound is  on the horizon. A surprise bidding war between five potential buyers broke out when Sotheby's brought Andy Warhol's 200 One Dollar Bills (1962) up to the auction block.

The 7 1/2-foot wide silkscreen painting of 200 life-size dollar bills in black, white and gray tones, sold for $43.76 million - more than three times its $12 million estimate. The painting sold to an undisclosed phone bidder, who paid the second-highest price at auction for a work by the Pop artist.

"Bidding was very deep tonight," said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's contemporary art director. "The desire to have great things will make [collectors] step up and pay more than $40 million."

The late Warhol's artwork is certainly enjoying 15 minutes of fame this week. On Tuesday evening, another Warhol silkscreen, a portrait of Michael Jackson, also beat estimates; it sold for $812,500 at a Christie's auction.

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Read More - Warhol Fetches $43.7 Million at Auction | New York Times
[Photo: Andy Warhol. Two Hundred One Dollar Bills, 1962.]

Bidding War Over '200 One Dollar Bills' Ends at $43.76 Million

Top ART News: Week In Review | Oct. 25 - Nov. 1

■ Garage Sale Picasso: Is a Two Dollar Purchase Worth 2 Million? | More >

■ Andy Warhol's King of Pop Portrait Enjoys Its "15 Minutes" | More >

■ Artists Hope Ice House Makes a Chilling Statement in Detroit | More >

■ The 82-Story MoMA Monster Is Coming to New York City | More >

■ The Guggenheim Museum Celebrates 50 Years | More >

■ Met Museum Repatriates the Naos Egyptian Artifact | More > 

■ Attention Mall Shoppers: World's Largest Mona Lisa On View | More >

■ A Night at the Museum: Guggenheim's First Annual Art Awards Ceremony | More >

Top ART News: Week In Review | Oct. 25 - Nov. 1

Andy Warhol's King of Pop Portrait Enjoys Its "15 Minutes"

NEW YORK -- It was Andy Warhol who coined the phrase, "In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." In the case of Michael Jackson, however, we have yet to stop talking about him, his music, his eccentric lifestyle, since his untimely death on June 25.

Understandably, Jackson memorabilia is more popular than ever, including fine art pieces depicting "The King of Pop" and others created in tribute. Those in the market for such works will soon be in luck; a 30x26" silk-screen portrait of the singer in his Thriller-era red jacket will soon be up for bid. The 1984 work was done by Andy Warhol in his Pop Art style, with bright colors and squiggly lines. Christie's will auction the work on November 10; it is one of three similar lots expected to fetch an estimated $500,000-$700,000.

The widely publicized Michael Jackson documentary, This Is It, will make its worldwide premier in movie theaters on Wednesday. But as far as the King of Pop's growing popularity, his legacy as a musical genius and the constant media attention  -  this is definitely not it.

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Read More - Warhol Portrait of Michael Jackson Up for Auction | AP

[Photo: Andy Warhol. Michael Jackson portrait, 1984.]

* * * * * UPDATE * * * * *

Nov. 11, 2009 — The Andy Warhol silk-screened portrait of Michael Jackson sold for $812,500 on Tuesday evening. The work was sold by Christie's to an anonymous collector in New York.

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Read More - Warhol's Michael Jackson Portrait Sells for $812K | AP

Andy Warhol's King of Pop Portrait Enjoys Its "15 Minutes"

Art Collector Waives Insurance Policy for Stolen Andy Warhol Paintings

LOS ANGELES -- The LAPD would like to speak with art collector, Richard L. Weisman, the owner of 11 Andy Warhol paintings which he reported stolen from his home in early September.

That is, if they can track him down.

The elusive Weisman has apparently decided not to collect on his insurance policy for the missing fine art, estimated to be worth $25 million.

It seems unthinkable that anyone would settle for such a loss, but Weisman worries that an investigation would impose on his friends and family. "They turn you into a suspect," he explained, adding that he doesn't want his records being pored over by authorities.

Police say they do not have a suspect in the case as of yet.

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[Read More - Man Who Reported Stolen Warhols Waives Insurance | AP]

Art Collector Waives Insurance Policy for Stolen Andy Warhol Paintings