Post-war/contemporary art sale fetches $332M in NY

Reclining Nude is considered to be one of the best known works of Modigliani.

The Christie’s auction sale of Modigliani’s painting, Nu Couché (aka Reclining Nude), is interesting for both his story and that of the buyer, Liu Yigian and his wife, Wang Wei, of China.

The painting, called “Nu Couché” (Reclining Nude), belongs to a group of ten works of reclining nudes in which the nude model is shown reclining across the same vivid red couch.

“Untitled” – an installation by Cuban-American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres comprising of small, individually wrapped green sweets – sold for $7.67 million, Christie’s said.

Mr Liu’s telephone bid at Christie’s in NY on Monday was only €7m off the record €167m paid for Picasso’s The Women of Algiers by an anonymous buyer in May.

Christie’s is expecting to sell at least $1 billion of art over the this week, according to The Associated Press, and it is almost halfway there. “They are handsome paintings – a few even exceptional as is the Modigliani – but they are tried and true”.

And his thirst for art is also part of a wider Chinese trend, where the seriously rich are on a global hunt for top quality works, despite a high-profile campaign launched by the country’s Communist leaders against excess.

It was the second highest price ever achieved at auction for a work or art, Christie’s said.

Another artist record was broken for a Gauguin sculpture, when “Thérèse” sold for just under $31 million, beating the $25 million estimate.

It is not the first time Liu has broken records for bidding on works of art: in November 2014, he paid a record price of HK$348.4 million for a Tibetan tapestry, and in April the same year, he bought a Ming dynasty Meiyintang “Chicken Cup” for HK$281.24 million.

“I have no wish to dampen the markets in any way”, Richard Feigen, a dealer, said after the sale, but contemporary and modern art “has become a parking lot for money” as central banks’ policy of keeping interest rates low has inflated asset prices.

The other Gauguin, “Young Man with a Flower”, is a painting of a Tahitian youth wearing a white shirt, loose cravat and a white blossom tucked behind his ear. The museum was founded by Liu Yiqian. It sold for $22.5 million.

That was also sold at Christie’s in May this year. In all, “The Artist’s Muse”, a 34-lot, hybrid sale, brought $491 million total. His 1955 painting “Les femmes d’Alger” fetched $179 million at a Christie’s auction earlier this year.