Picasso painting fetches $67.5 million at Sotheby’s modern art auction
New York City, US, May 17 (EFE).- “Femme nue coucheé,” a 1932 cubist painting by Pablo Picasso of his lover Marie-Therèse Walter, sold for $67.54 million at an auction of modern art at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday.
It was the most expensive painting to be sold at the auction from more than 50 pieces, which included other works by the Spanish artist, such as “L’Étreinte” (which sold for $14.11 million), “Mousquetaire à la pipe, buste” (for $8.48 million) and “Homme et femme nue” (for $5.13 million).
The next most sought-after artist was the French Impressionist Claude Monet, whose painting of Venice, “Le Grand Canal et Santa Maria della Salute,” sold for $56.62 million and the lush garden landscape, “Les Arceaux de roses, Giverny,” for $23.30 million.
“Clairière” (The Glade), by Paul Cézanne in 1985, sold for $41.68 million while Philip Guston’s Abstract Expressionist “Nile” went for $18 million and “Leaves in Weehawken” by Willem de Kooning for $10.09 million.
Some pieces far exceeded expectations, such as Robert Motherwell’s “Elegy to the Spanish Republic No 59”, which was picked up for $1.19 million, double the most optimistic estimate, and Leonora Carrington’s “The Garden of Paracelsus,” which set a record for the artist, with $3.26 million.
Several sculptures also sold well, including “Femme de Venise II” by Alberto Giacometti, which fetched $17.56 million, “Femme debout” by Pablo Picasso, which went for $2.11 million, and an untitled one of Alexander Calder’s famous mobiles, which sold for $4.53 million.
The auction also had some disappointments as certain works remained unsold because the bids were too low, as in the case of Kees van Dongen’s “Tamara de Lempicka” and another of Calder’s mobiles.
The auction raked in $408.5 million, the third highest total for an auction at Sotheby’s, which is scheduled to hold another major sale of modern and contemporary art on Thursday. EFE
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