George Lindemann Journal

After Christie's bumpy lead-in to the New York fall auctions, Sotheby's held a robust sale of Impressionist and modern art on Wednesday that could reassure collectors about the trajectory of the market overall.

Alberto Giacometti's "Large Thin Head (Large Head of Diego)" sold for $50 million at auction in New York Wednesday. Reuters

Earlier this week, Christie's three-day series of Impressionist and modern art sales totaled $293.7 million. On Wednesday, Sotheby's got nearly that much from its evening sale alone. Its $290.2 million total represented one of the highest in the company's history, thanks to a trio of pieces that each topped $30 million.

New York dealer Bill Acquavella, who buys for American billionaires, paid $50 million for Alberto Giacometti's "Large Thin Head (Large Head of Diego)," a 2-foot-tall, spindly bronze bust of the artist's brother that was priced to sell for $35 million to $50 million. An anonymous telephone bidder also paid $39.9 million for Pablo Picasso's colorful 1935 portrait of his mistress sporting a purple beret, "Head of a Woman." That painting was only expected to sell for up to $30 million.

Picasso's cherry-red, 1969 portrait of a swashbuckling musketeer, "Musketeer with a Pipe," also sold for $30.9 million, exceeding its $18 million high estimate and resetting the high bar for a late-era work by the artist. The buyer was Monte Carlo dealer David Nahmad, whose son Helly was recently accused by federal prosecutors in Manhattan of participating in an illegal gambling ring. The Nahmads have denied any wrongdoing.

The art market is a high-stakes table all its own, and Sotheby's said collectors from 13 countries anted up on Wednesday—notably those hailing from the U.S., Switzerland and Latin America. Collectors from the last group, including Brazilians, took home Francis Picabia's $8.8 million "Volucelle II," a confection of black-and-white stripes dotted with colorful, bowling ball-shaped orbs, as well as works by Marc Chagall. Chinese collectors also underbid heavily for classic examples of Impressionists like Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet.

At least five bidders chased after Monet's shivery "Icicles," and a telephone bidder won it—after a protracted bidding war—for $16.1 million, over its $14 million high estimate.

Dealers said Sotheby's won out this week in part by offering works that hadn't been traded lately in the marketplace, which gave the works a where's-that-been freshness that collectors crave. Only a dozen of its 64 offerings had even turned up at auction in the past two decades and several of the priciest offerings, like the Giacometti bronze, were auction first-timers. After Christie's saw some of its most expensive examples by Picasso fail to find takers earlier this week, Sotheby's also had the luxury of time to go back to its sellers and adjust their reserves, or minimum asking prices, downward. Bidding for some of Sotheby's works, like a Juan Gris that sold for $8.8 million, started at $4.7 million—well below a typical starting price.

But bidders at Sotheby's also exuded more exuberance, a sign they may have simply preferred the house's offerings over its rival this time around. The telephone buyer of the Gris also picked up a $1.9 million Giorgio de Chirico, a $2.6 million Jacques Lipschitz, and a $1.4 million Auguste Rodin.

Overall, 52 of Sotheby's 64 pieces found buyers, helping the sale achieve a strong 92.3% of its potential presale value. Records were broken for artists like Picabia, Lipschitz, Jean Arp, and Gustave Courbet.

After the sale, Sotheby's specialist Simon Shaw said collectors are still willing to shop, but they no longer want to overpay. "The market sorts out what's truly great."

George Lindemann Journal

Two founders of the Dia Art Foundation have taken the unusual step of going to court to try to stop the art organization from auctioning off as much as $20 million in works from its world-class holdings next week at Sotheby’s.

The foundation has come under fire from many parts of the art world over its decision to sell the works and has defended itself by saying that it needed the money to continue to grow and to buy new artworks.        Heiner Friedrich and Fariha de Menil Friedrich, who formed Dia in 1974 to support contemporary artists doing challenging work, filed suit in state court in Manhattan on Thursday, seeking an injunction against the foundation and Sotheby’s, which is planning to auction Dia works by luminaries like Cy Twombly, John Chamberlain and Barnett Newman on Wednesday. Many of the works named in the lawsuit were donated by Mr. and Ms. Friedrich when they created the foundation with the art historian Helen Winkler. The lawsuit claims that selling the works to private collectors would remove them “from public access and viewing in direct contravention of Dia’s entire intent and purpose.” The auction would be a breach of an “implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing” with the Friedrichs and the artists who made the works, the suit states. In a phone interview, Mr. Friedrich, who last served on the foundation’s board in the mid-1980s, said: “The foundation must raise funds differently than through selling works of art, selling its heritage.” Officials at Sotheby’s and Dia said they were reviewing the papers and had no comment. Mr. and Ms. Friedrich and other opponents of the sale have met over the last several months with Dia’s director, Philippe Vergne, to try to dissuade the foundation from selling the works. Mr. Vergne has said he believes the sale to be crucial for helping the foundation evolve as it embarks on building a new Manhattan home in Chelsea. In 2004, Dia closed its two Chelsea galleries, saying it had outgrown the buildings. Its permanent collection — a huge array of works from the 1960s to the present — is now displayed in the foundation’s outpost in Beacon, N.Y. “Dia cannot be a mausoleum,” Mr. Vergne said in June, in announcing the planned sale. “It needs to grow and develop.” Shortly after that announcement, Paul Winkler, the former director of the Menil Collection in Houston, which has one of the best Twombly collections in the world, wrote to the foundation urging it to rethink the sale, which includes Twombly’s “Poems to the Sea,” a suite of 24 drawings from 1959, and Newman’s “Genesis — The Break,” a 1946 abstract canvas. “Poems” is expected to sell at Sotheby’s contemporary art auction next week for $6 million to $8 million. “Cy Twombly considered ‘Poems by the Sea’ to be one of the greatest sets of drawings,” wrote Mr. Winkler, brother of Ms. Winkler. “It is a masterwork, not a minor piece to be sold to beef up an acquisition fund. The same can be said of the exceptional Chamberlain work in your care and Newman’s ‘Genesis — The Break.’ ” The Friedrichs, who were once married but have since divorced, acknowledge in the lawsuit that terms under which these works passed to the foundation may not be clear. An original statement of purpose, saying that “works of art purchased by plaintiffs through Dia or donated by them to Dia were to form permanent collections for the public” cannot be located in Mr. and Ms. Friedrich’s documents, the suit says. But the court papers also raise the possibility that Twombly’s “Poems,” as well as some Chamberlain works and other Twomblys, might not be legally owned by Dia but might be long-term loans from the Friedrichs. The suit claims that a museum, possibly the Menil, was in discussions to buy “Poems” but that Dia rejected the offer. <img src="http://meter-svc.nytimes.com/meter.gif"/> This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: November 8, 2013 An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to Helen Winkler. She is an art historian, not an artist-historian.

George Lindemann Journal

Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Paintings Discovered in Germany: Hundreds of forgotten art works were found hidden in a Munich apartment.

By MELISSA EDDY, ALISON SMALE, PATRICIA COHEN and RANDY KENNEDY 

The George Lindemann Journal

The Munich apartment building where the authorities were said to have found about 1,400 works of art that were confiscated under the Nazis or sold cheaply by owners trying to flee Hitler.

BERLIN — There was no hint that the older man who called a couple of years back about selling a picture could be sitting on an unimaginable trove of art confiscated or banned by the Nazis. When the proffered work, “Lion Tamer” by the German artist Max Beckmann, was collected, the seller seemed to be a proper gentleman in Munich dispensing with a lone, dusty art gem at the end of his life.

It was a “fantastic picture,” recalled Karl-Sax Feddersen of the Cologne auction house Lempertz, who noted how pleased the auction house team was with the auction price: 864,000 euros, or $1.17 million.

When he learned on Monday that the Beckmann seller, Cornelius Gurlitt, now 80, had reportedly sat on hundreds of works, including art by Picasso and Matisse, that were confiscated under the Nazis or sold cheaply by owners desperate to flee Hitler, Mr. Feddersen was amazed. “Imagine!” he said, envisaging seeing and selling such a collection.

But even before the Beckmann was sold, the Bavarian authorities swooped in on Mr. Gurlitt’s home to seize the rest of his treasure, according to the newsmagazine Focus: about 1,500 works estimated to be worth $1.4 billion. Focus said the works were seized after the police and customs officials entered Mr. Gurlitt’s home in Munich in spring 2011.

If confirmed, the discovery would be one of the biggest finds of vanished art in years. But word of it left almost equally big questions unanswered: Why did the German authorities let more than two years pass before such a sizable find was disclosed? What will become of the recovered works of art? Did Mr. Gurlitt continue to make sales even after the raid? And where is he today?

There are no reports that Mr. Gurlitt has been detained or charged, and questions about the history of the artworks, including whether they were confiscated or subject to a forced or voluntary sale, would determine whether a current sale or auction would be judged legitimate.

Since news of the find was first reported Sunday, the German authorities have come under fierce criticism in the art world as to why they did not make the discovery public.

Even on Monday, Bavarian and federal German officials who knew of the spectacular 2011 raid remained quiet. The German government’s only comment, from a spokesman, Steffen Seibert, was that it was aware of the case. However, the German authorities scheduled a news conference for Tuesday.

“They should have come out with this list pronto,” said Jonathan Petropoulos, the author of “The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany.”

“That’s the way that restitution works,” Mr. Petropoulos added, calling it “unconscionable” that the authorities “sat on the trove for two and a half years,” particularly because it appeared to be an exceptionally large find.

The trail to the artworks, the magazine said, stemmed from an incident in September 2010, when Bavarian customs officials on a train to Germany from Switzerland became suspicious after finding Mr. Gurlitt carrying €9,000, or about $12,150, in crisp €500 notes.

The inquiries spurred by the money eventually led investigators to the apartment in Munich, the magazine said, reporting that Mr. Gurlitt had apparently lived there for decades, selling off pictures as needed over the years, to judge by empty frames found in his home. Emma Bahlmann, an employee of the Cologne auction house that sold the Beckmann work, said she went to an apartment with Mr. Gurlitt but saw no evidence of other artworks as she took the Beckmann off the wall.

The hundreds of works found in the Munich apartment reported to have been raided by authorities — including paintings but also many graphics and even an engraving by Albrecht Dürer, the German Renaissance artist — were taken to a customs facility near Munich for storage, Focus said. Meike Hoffmann, an art historian at an institute specializing in Nazi-confiscated art at the Free University in Berlin, was engaged to go through the discovered works.

Ms. Hoffmann declined to talk to reporters on Sunday or Monday about what she described in an email as “this case.”

But a video of a conference in September, posted on the institute’s website, showed her saying that her institute would soon be doing more work associated with Hildebrand Gurlitt, Cornelius Gurlitt’s father. The elder Mr. Gurlitt had trouble with the Nazis because he was deemed a quarter Jewish under the Nuremberg race laws, and he was dismissed from two museum posts. Yet he was also one of the few Germans granted permission by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief, to sell confiscated art. Sales to foreign buyers were meant to fill Nazi coffers, but art historians have documented many sales in Germany, as well as proceeds pocketed by the dealers involved.

“The research institute has had comprehensive material from private ownership put at its disposal,” Ms. Hoffmann said at the meeting. The materials “were completely unknown till now and will bring much to light.”

Hildebrand Gurlitt was detained and questioned by Americans investigating art looting just after the war ended in May 1945, Mr. Petropoulos said. The elder Mr. Gurlitt, who had an apartment in Dresden during the war, is said to have told the authorities that his collection burned in the bombing of that city in February 1945.

The German authorities have established several offices aimed at assisting in finding out the complex provenance of artworks that were seized by the Nazis or by invading Soviet troops at the end of World War II, and that were then sold off cheaply but according to legal formalities, or that simply disappeared in the chaos.

Any claims that do arise from the Gurlitt case are likely to take years to sort out. German museums whose collections were ravaged by the Nazis are as likely to submit claims as the heirs of Jewish collectors and dealers whose work was confiscated by the Nazis. The sale of the Beckmann painting by the Cologne auction house represented what Mr. Feddersen characterized as a relatively rare occasion in which Jewish heirs — in this case the heirs to Alfred Flechtheim, a gallery owner and dealer forced to flee Nazi Germany who died poor in London in 1937 — were able to share proceeds with the owner, Mr. Gurlitt.

The Galerie Kornfeld, a gallery in Bern, Switzerland, reported by Focus to have been the source of the cash found on Mr. Gurlitt on the train in 2010, denied having any dealings with him since 1990. Back then, the Galerie Kornfeld said in a statement, Mr. Gurlitt got 38,250 Swiss francs from selling works on paper by artists whose work was confiscated by the Nazis in 1937 as “degenerate.”

Hildebrand Gurlitt had acquired the works his son sold in 1990 “for cheap money in the years after 1938,” the Kornfeld gallery’s statement said. Cornelius Gurlitt never declared that he inherited the works upon the death of his mother, Helene, in 1967, the gallery said. (Hildebrand Gurlitt died in a traffic accident in 1956.)

The Bern gallery said Eberhard Kornfeld, who runs the gallery, was not available to speak to a reporter by phone. His gallery’s statement did not provide details of past dealings with Mr. Gurlitt, but emphasized how carefully one must distinguish between confiscated art and art that was acquired legally, even if the acquisition now seems to have been strange or made under duress. These works “are freely available for purchase to this day,” the statement said.

Mr. Kornfeld was recently portrayed as dealing in art looted from Jews in a proceeding that made its way to the United States Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. He has denied the allegations.

His gallery’s statement said: “Cornelius Gurlitt’s statement to customs authorities in 2010 that the money came from business dealings with the Galerie Kornfeld in Bern is not accurate. The last sales date back to 1990.”

The gallery indicated, however, that its business with Mr. Gurlitt was mutually satisfying. For 16 years after those last dealings, Cornelius Gurlitt regularly received mailed catalogs from Kornfeld, sent to his Munich address. Only after 2006 were they returned, the gallery said, with a stamp indicating “Reception refused” or “Undeliverable.”

By ALISON SMALE

The George Lindemann Journal

So you want to be the next Peggy Guggenheim. Besides wealth, what does it take to qualify as a heavyweight art collector today? Kelly Crow has answers on Lunch Break. Photo: André Klotz for The Wall Street Journal.

Last year, Brazilian collector Pedro Barbosa spotted a tumbling spiral made with hundreds of rubber tires at the Swiss fair Art Basel. The next day, Mr. Barbosa told a collector friend, Luiz Augusto Teixeira de Freitas, that he intended to buy the tires, actually a $150,000 installation by British artist Mike Nelson.

Surprised, Mr. Augusto reminded Mr. Barbosa that the artwork wouldn't fit inside Mr. Barbosa's São Paulo home. "Doesn't matter," Mr. Barbosa said. "I bet I can lend it to some museum in America." (For now, he is storing the work with a dealer in Italy).

It takes great wealth—and a little hubris—to ascend the ranks of the world's top art collectors. Mr. Barbosa, a 48-year-old former bond trader, is determined to qualify. Like many collectors of his generation, he began buying art on a whim just over a decade ago, but his pursuit has steadily grown serious. By collecting younger, hard-to-get Brazilian artists like Paulo Nazareth along with global superstars like Olafur Eliasson, he has earned a reputation as a highflying tastemaker on the international art scene. Mr. Barbosa employs a personal curator, Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, to manage his collection and allows guest curators to organize shows inside his spacious home in São Paulo's prestigious Jardins neighborhood. He also keeps an apartment around the corner where favored artists like Amalia Pica can stay to make and show their work. Friends say he is ever on the move, traveling to far-flung biennials and fairs from London to Istanbul to the United Arab Emirates. Altogether, his 500-piece collection amounts to roughly half his net worth, he said.

Mr. Barbosa is part of an emerging class of collectors springing up from all corners of the globe who are transforming the art marketplace with their willingness to splurge on art that suits their own tastes—not only the canons of New York or London. From Beijing to Bogotá, new art hubs are thriving in large part because these up-and-comers continue to amass art—in good economic times and bad. Many are investing heavily in contemporary art, the most speculative end of the spectrum, and changing the way the market functions.

Pedro Barbosa's Art Collection

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Pedro Barbosa has earned a reputation as a high-flying tastemaker on the international art scene by collecting younger, hard-to-get Brazilian artists like Jonathas de Andrade, shown here. This piece is titled 'Education for Adults' (2010). Jonathas de Andrade/Galeria Vermelho

A few generations ago, collectors like Henry Tate or Peggy Guggenheim needed aristocratic ties—or robber-baron-level fortunes—to ascend the ranks of the art world elite. Today, there are no rules for assembling a group of contemporary artworks that will one day prove iconic. Newcomer collectors say they pick up clues where they can. Some, like French investment banker Edouard Carmignac, have created art prizes to ferret out fresh discoveries—which they later showcase in their own art spaces. Others such as Roman entrepreneur Pierpaulo Barzan run foundations that mount traveling museum-style shows featuring artists they also happen to buy. Plenty more, like Costa Rican real-estate developer Judko Rosenstock, give pieces by hotshot artists to major museums like the Tate—moves that could bolster the cachet of his own pieces by those artists.

Mr. Barbosa's evolution is emblematic. Early on, he said he only collected artists from Brazil, but last year he decided to "go global," and he's been "going nuts" ever since—traveling to international fairs to collect artists like Germany's Wolfgang Tillmans and Lebanon's Rayyane Tabet. These additions serve to diversify his holdings, he said, but they also put his Brazilian pieces into a broader art context. To the same end, he also recently donated pieces by two young Brazilian artists, Jonathas de Andrade and Andre Komatsu, to London's Tate Modern.

It helps that his growing ambitions also coincide with his country's emergence as a global art hub. Until a few years ago, Brazil's art market was steady but relatively insular, anchored by South American collectors who were willing to pay as much as $50,000 for Lygia Clark's foldable aluminum sculptures or $15,000 for Beatriz Milhazes's flowery abstracts. But as Brazil's economy has expanded, local collectors have found themselves increasingly competing for their hometown favorites with buyers from around the globe—and prices have spiked as a result.

Even now as Brazil confronts higher inflation and signs of tapering growth, collectors keep bidding record sums for Brazilian modern and contemporary art. In May, Phillips in New York sold Ms. Clark's 1959 black-and white abstract, "Against Relief (Object No. 7)," for $2.2 million, the most ever paid for a work of Brazilian art.

                                  

Pedro Barbosa's collection includes 'Fine Tapestry' by Adriano Costa Adriano Costa/Mendes Wood DM, Sao Paulo

The auction record still represents a fraction of what China's counterpart collectors have paid lately for their own masterpieces, so market-watchers say Brazilian art still has plenty of room to grow, price-wise.

All this attention is pointing a bigger spotlight on the handful of Brazilian contemporary collectors who have positioned themselves as regional kingmakers, such as Mr. Barbosa. "The galleries look at everything Pedro is buying," said Mr. Freitas, the collector who saw the tires with him in Basel.

One of Mr. Barbosa's latest moves is telling. In September, he invited a curator from London's nonprofit Chisenhale Gallery, Polly Staple, to visit Brazil. He helped pay for her stay, and one morning he picked her up from her hotel for a tour of a few nonprofit art spaces and galleries. He had borrowed his wife Patricia Moraes ' black SUV for the occasion: "Welcome to an armored, bulletproof car," he said, chuckling, as Ms. Staple climbed in.

First up was Pivô, a nonprofit art incubator that opened last year in a former dentist's office inside architect Oscar Niemayer's undulating Copan building in downtown São Paulo. Next, they stopped by Galeria Vermelho—vermelho means "red" in Portuguese—to see a group show with artists like Cildo Meireles exploring issues of crime. The gallery had been robbed the week before, but the thief only took a CD player, so Vermelho didn't press charges. "The guy didn't think to steal the art," said dealer Akio Aoki.

An untitled work by Francesca Woodman Francesca Woodman/Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo

Mr. Barbosa also took Ms. Staple to meet Jaqueline Martins, a new dealer who specializes in selling São Paulo artists from the 1970s who have since been "overlooked" by the market, Mr. Barbosa said. Ms. Martins' roster includes Genilson Soares, a conceptual artist in his 70s who was once hailed for making large geometric installations often employing colored lighting and optical illusions. A few weeks after Mr. Barbosa's guided tour with Ms. Staple, Ms. Martins displayed one of Mr. Soares's oversize triangle works from 1973 at London's Frieze Art Fair—even though it wasn't technically for sale. "I bought that a month ago," Mr. Barbosa said. (He paid around $20,000.)

In São Paulo, Mr. Barbosa is well known for scouting Brazilian art schools and often buys pieces from promising students—a collecting tactic that's commonplace in New York but still relatively rare in São Paulo, dealers say. Local gallery Mendes Wood DM recently signed up one of his latest discoveries, sculptor Michael Dean. When Mr. Barbosa created an artist residency, one of the first artists he invited was Ms. Pica, another early find who just had her first U.S. solo museum show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Next up: New Yorkers Ken Okiishi and Nick Mauss.

Mr. Barbosa doesn't move through art circles with the panache of some of his countrymen, though. He is a millionaire, but he can't spend apace with Brazil's best-known collector, Bernardo Paz, a billionaire mining magnate from the Belo Horizonte region who reportedly spends $60 million a year commissioning and installing artworks throughout his vast jungle compound called Inhotim. Mr. Barbosa said he usually spends between $8,000 and $250,000 apiece on his art purchases. Still, he has found other ways to stand out.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Barbosa attended the opening party for the Mercosul Biennial in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. The event was held at the hilltop mansion of the biennial's president Patricia Fossati Druck, with partygoers like steel titan Jorge Gerdau Johannpeter dressed in designer suits. By contrast, Mr. Barbosa showed up wearing bluejeans, a baby-blue gingham shirt and Pac-Man cuff links. Shunning the glowing swimming pool and bar set up nearby to serve Brazil's favorite sugary cocktail, the caipirinha, Mr. Barbosa spent the night huddled on the lawn with artists like Mario Garcia Torres and Inhotim director Eungie Joo.

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Ms. Joo mentioned her favorite piece in the biennial was a rusty landscape installation by Brazilian artist Cinthia Marcelle —at which point Mr. Barbosa leaned toward her and whispered, "I might have the best collection of Cinthia's work." Ms. Joo's eyes widened, and she grinned her approval.

Half of São Paulo's 40-odd contemporary-art galleries are less than five years old. Mr. Barbosa knows the strengths and weaknesses of their rosters better than anyone, said Buenos Aires collector Mauro Herlitzka. This market intelligence gives Mr. Barbosa's collection a competitive edge. But as Mr. Barbosa's collection takes in more artworks from beyond Brazil, his ancillary costs have also mounted. Because of Brazil's punishing import-tax laws, he must pay up to 50% above a foreign artwork's sale price just to bring it into his country—a markup he may not be able to recoup unless the art's value appreciates significantly over time. Dealers say some Brazilian collectors have found ways to avoid these import taxes by buying and storing pieces abroad or smuggling them into their luggage. Mr. Barbosa said he buys from the local SP-Arte fair, where taxes are typically discounted by the government. He said he also has proof he has paid the appropriate fees for everything displayed in his house.

Mr. Barbosa and his wife Patricia, who is head of investment banking for JP Morgan in Brazil, and their two children live in a cream-colored, two-story house on a leafy block in the wealthy São Paulo district of Jardins. Throughout their home, they have arranged a mix of sleek, geometric pieces by contemporary classics like Sérgio de Camargo and Jesús Rafael Soto alongside newer sculptures made from ordinary materials like hair curlers. In their backyard, a pair of conjoined shopping carts by Marcelo Cidade stands sentry beside the pool. On a bench in their living room sits a row of handbags that were dipped in concrete like candlesticks by Mr. Tabet, the artist from Lebanon. Even the walls of the children's bedrooms have been commandeered for art: "Sometimes my son complains, but I run a dictatorship," Mr. Barbosa said, grinning.

His own introduction to art was considerably less in-your-face. His father was a high-school gym teacher who only wanted his three children to get a solid education, which they did. Mr. Barbosa's first cousin was a major art dealer, Raquel Arnaud, but he said he rarely hung out in her gallery growing up—he preferred to hang out in nearby Ibirapuera Park and sell ballpoint pens to his friends for a profit. (He stuffed the clear pen cases with shredded currency to add cachet.) After he married in 1999 and settled into a life as a banker specializing in emerging markets and depressed bonds, he started buying art.

His first piece was a $20,000 Soto that he bought from his cousin, but he later switched to buying cheaper pieces by younger living artists, and he's largely stuck to that pattern ever since. When he finds an artist with potential, he tells them he likes to buy several works at a time, but he warns them he will likely stop collecting their work after they turn 40. He said he does this because it compels him to keep seeking fresh talent rather than pay ever-higher premiums for examples by artists he already owns.

Increasingly, Mr. Barbosa is looking farther afield for his art. The shift started in 2008 when he went to Frieze in London for the first time and marveled at how few collectors had turned up in the wake of the Lehman Bros. closure weeks earlier. Walking around the fair's vacant aisles, he realized he could ask galleries for steep discounts if he was willing to broaden the scope of his collection beyond Brazil. He took home pieces by Mr. Eliasson and Tomas Saraceno.

Last year, he ratcheted things up again by hiring his curator, Mr. Visconti, who has planned Brazil's pavilion for the Venice Biennale. Besides paying Mr. Visconti an undisclosed monthly retainer, Mr. Barbosa pays him to travel and inform him about artists to consider. The pair now invites young curators to mount shows of Mr. Barbosa's collection.

In a few more years, the plan is to publish a book about these shows—yet another way Mr. Barbosa hopes to lend lasting credibility to his collection. It's a tactic museums have been using for years, after all. "I don't want to spend too much on the parts," he said. "I'm more interested in the whole."

Write to Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com

The Gang’s All There, Talking Art in Qatar

Eyes in Doha Are on Damien Hirsts and Warhols

Natalie Naccache for The New York Times

The Qatar Museums Authority’s Al Riwaq exhibition space in Doha is decorated as a giant Damien Hirst spot painting.

                                                                                                                

Balance the buzz and the business: That seems to be the motto of the 11th Frieze London art fair. Concerned that the crowds and parties were starting to elbow out sales, organizers are aiming for a smaller, more focused event.

They have cut by 20% the number of available tickets, including those for VIPs, and reduced the number of galleries presenting their works to 152 from 175 last year. Meanwhile, some galleries that formerly brought in a range of artists are turning to one-artist booths to boost the profiles of lower-priced new or middle-market artists.

The vaunted party scene, second only to Art Basel Miami Beach on the art-fair circuit, is a double-edged sword, some galleries say. "A lot of people don't realize that dealers aren't there just to hang out. This is a huge part of our business," says Cuban-American dealer Javier Peres, who has shown at Frieze London since 2004. He sat out last year—a move prompted by uneven sales and the fact that many of the fair's 55,000 visitors were only window-shopping—but his gallery will be back on Wednesday, when the five-day fair begins.

The cutbacks are meant to "make the fair more luxurious," says Frieze London's co-founder and director Amanda Sharp.

Some things will be the same: Large galleries with stables of high-profile artists typically opt to show a sampling of fresh work at Frieze. U.S.-based Bloom & Poe will offer a $400,000 painting by Takashi Murakami, while Austrian dealer Thaddaeus Ropac is bringing a $1.8 million abstract sculpture by Georg Baselitz.

In previous years, many dealers say, visitors ended up suffering from "fair fatigue"—overwhelmed by the number of galleries and artists represented. To counter this, the New York-based Marianne Boesky gallery is focusing on just one artist: 11 works on paper and oil paintings by Russian-born artist Kon Trubkovich. His eerie, blurry images, often preoccupied with incarceration, range from $9,000 to $65,000.

Gerd Harry Lybke, whose Leipzig, Germany, gallery Eigen + Art represents Neo Rauch, says a safe bet would be bringing to Frieze the superstar painter's works, which range from about $160,000 to $950,000 on the primary market. But many Frieze visitors already know Mr. Rauch's work, and it is a better long-term strategy to introduce them to a less familiar figure, Mr. Lybke says. He says he hopes to raise the profile of Mr. Rauch's contemporary Uwe Kowski, whose works, often hovering somewhere between representation and abstraction, range from $2,700 to $80,000.

It is a risky move at a fair where an average-size booth costs around $35,000—not including thousands more for art transport and lodging. "If you go to a fair like Frieze and don't earn money, you're screwed," says Mr. Lybke. "I'm bringing two people whose sole jobs are to concern themselves with Uwe's work and explain it to you in a few sentences."

Lisson Gallery is hosting a solo booth of only one work, asking around $600,000 for an installation by Dan Graham, an American artist in his 70s.

While Frieze London cuts back, Frieze Masters is adding 30 galleries for 131 overall. The sister fair, which runs simultaneously, launched last year to show works created before 2000 and racked up strong sales figures, including Van de Weghe Fine Art's sale of an $8.5 million Pablo Picasso painting and a 1968 Joan Miró sold by Helly Nahmad for around $20 million.

Simon Dickinson is one of a handful of galleries leaving the smaller Pavilion of Art and Design, another London-based autumn fair, for Frieze Masters. Director Emma Ward says her gallery will be bringing 30 works including "Study for Discs," a 1919 oil painting by Fernand Léger priced at around $9.6 million.

Meanwhile, Acquavella Galleries is upping the ante with Picasso's 1949 "Woman Sitting," offered for around $20 million, and a 1950 Francis Bacon for around $11 million. Zurich-based David Koetser will be bringing a $6.2 million oil on copper by Jan Brueghel the Elder.

Many of the new galleries are major players who held back last autumn to see if the fair took root. "We had nothing to base the caliber of the fair on," says Sukanya Rajaratnam, a partner at Manhattan's Mnuchin Gallery and a 2012 holdout. But she was "blown away" by last year's "boutique atmosphere" and is bringing a dozen works on paper, bronzes and oil paintings by Willem de Kooning, including a 1983 painting selling for $8 million and a 1973 sculpture for $8.5 million.

Write to Mary M. Lane at mary.lane@wsj.com

Loeb. (Courtesy PMC)

Last week, Daniel Loeb’s activist hedge fund, Third Point Partners, which weighs in at a hefty $15 billion, increased to 9.3 percent its share in Sotheby’s (aka BID) stock. Another activist fund, Marcato Capital Management, owns about 6 percent of the auction house, and billionaire Nelson Peltz of Trian Fund Management owns another 3, putting about 19 percent of the company shares in “hostile” hands.

Right on cue, Mr. Loeb wrote one of his classic letters excoriating BID Chairman Bill Ruprecht for his extravagant perks and salary while demanding that he step down in favor of a new management team and a few Third Point appointed directors.

By Friday morning, Mr. Ruprecht had dug in his heels, announcing that the company he chairs had taken a “poison pill.” This is not an uncommon defense mechanism for public companies; poison pills are intended to dilute the value of the stock by flooding the market with additional shares if a hostile buyer goes over 10 percent. But one can’t help but savor the irony, in Sotheby’s case, that a company that specializes in making or faking bidding wars for art should create obstacles for professional investors who want to bid up the company’s shares. BID is currently up to more than $50 per share, a nearly 47 percent increase over its share price at the beginning of this year, so even if this is all smoke and mirrors, the sizzle is working on the street.

If Mr. Loeb’s track record outside the art world is any indication, we may well see BID achieve $60 or even $70 per share, a market capitalization of $4.5 billion to $5 billion. Third Point has delivered outstanding results for its investors since Mr. Loeb founded the firm in 1995. Mr. Loeb has made a habit of tilting at large companies, most recently his 7 percent position in Sony and his subsequent demand that it split the entertainment business from the rest of the company: The split did not occur, but the stock did go up handsomely. In the case of Third Point’s investment in Yahoo, Mr. Loeb was successful in bringing in a new CEO and literally doubling the stock price, a big win for both shareholders and investors in his fund.

But is BID really worth it? Is the company as old-fashioned and stodgy as Mr. Loeb and his co-investors believe—in his own words, an “Old Master painting” badly in need of restoration? As Mr. Loeb pointed out in his scathing letter, BID has lagged behind its archrival, Christie’s, in both market share and the hunt for top lots to feature in major biannual evening sales. Christie’s has set more records recently for blue-chip artists like Calder, Yves Klein and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Meanwhile, Sotheby’s achieved lackluster results for a large Barnett Newman painting featured last season. Consigners have responded to Christie’s momentum by bringing valuable artworks to the block, like Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog, estimated to sell for $35 million to $55 million in a Christie’s sale next month. Sotheby’s has parried with a major Warhol disaster diptych in its corresponding November sale, but silver paintings from the ’60s don’t have the same spark.

Would that Newman painting have done better at Christie’s? There is one macro difference between the two companies, from which many other differences stem. Sotheby’s is publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and Christie’s is a private company controlled by the French art collecting luxury goods tycoon Francois Pinault. In 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis, Christie’s continued offering consignors juicy guarantees for major evening sale lots, even if it then tried to lay them off on third parties, locking in profits for the house. Mr. Ruprecht, wanting to sound more prudent, told the stock market that Sotheby’s would no longer offer guarantees, because the company had been so badly burned in evening sales of November 2008.

Mr. Ruprecht’s approach might have sounded good to myopic Wall Street types who see the art market as fraught with risk and view the art business as narrowly as any other business, but the strategy was wrong.

Art is a fashion-driven business prone to either feast or famine, and star lots and market share are critical in maintaining the appearance of success, even when fierce competition leads to side deals where house premiums sometimes get cut to the bone. Though art collecting has grown globally, and prices have risen overall, every artwork, and each artist’s individual market, tells a different story; the line between a world record sale and a flop is all too often razor-thin. In order to remain at the top of their game, the auction houses must charge after those few lots in a season that have the potential to make headlines. Having no one to report to but Mr. Pinault, Christie’s was able to be more nimble, despite an uncertain world economy.

Since the epic disaster of the painfully absurd “price fixing” scandal back in 2000, Sotheby’s and Christie’s have developed very different styles of doing business. Sotheby’s acts like a European academic institution where department heads are virtually tenured and there is limited incentive or leeway for underlings to go hunting for deals. This feeling is palpable as one walks into the building; behind the information desk are tight-suited staffers who insist on asking where you are going before they let you up the elevator. There is a British, clubby feeling of privilege and stuffy pedigree; it’s a place where you, the nouveau riche, have come to ogle the dusty treasures of the refined Old World while the natty experts stand aloof as if you have interrupted their rereading of Proust.

Christie’s is considerably warmer. Until recently, a genial, mustachioed doorman, Gil Perez, welcomed you. (Sadly he retired last year.) You walk into a labyrinth of art for sale. Sometimes, large pieces are plopped awkwardly in front of the building. One is never really sure which of the experts is the department head, but they are always in a rush, as if you are talking to them in an airport and they have just a few minutes between flights.

Fine art has traditionally been marketed in the buttoned-up, European manner, and Christie’s lack of hierarchy and more democratic approach has made some new buyers feel less like they are trying to get into a club where they know they are not welcome. I happen to favor the snottier style—as Groucho said, I wouldn’t join any club that would have me as a member—but times have changed, and the social dynamic of collecting is more powerful than ever. Sales are not just about the quality of the works or an elegant, sophisticated presentation. Aggressive marketing, over-the-top parties and elaborate catalogs have raised the stakes of this expensive battle.

Still, Sotheby’s is the premier name in art. It has been around since 1744. I would guess that the name alone is worth at least $1 billion, or about $14 per share. For the value of Sotheby’s to be maximized—and for it to exist on a level playing field with Christie’s—it would likely have to go private or be merged into a larger entity. Look at eBay, which has a market cap of $72 billion; sources tell me it is looking to expand its presence in art. It could easily swallow up Sotheby’s and instantly change the value and global reach of the company. Far-fetched? I don’t think so. EBay certainly knows how to build efficient online selling platforms. Then there’s the more natural and obvious fit with Bernard Arnault’s LVMH luxury conglomerate, which sports a market cap of $72.66 billion. Here’s a company that knows how to maximize brands globally and is not afraid to take on fixer-uppers with great brand strength and identity. Mr. Arnault gave auction house ownership a go when LVMH financed Phillips from 1999 to 2002—maybe he has learned from that lesson and is ready for another round. And perhaps Mr. Arnault would enjoy challenging Christie’s and the Pinault family, his archrivals in luxury retail.

Every system benefits from being challenged, and I believe the present firefight will benefit Sotheby’s and in fact already has. But don’t expect it to last long: The art world is a lot smaller than outsiders believe. Don’t be surprised if New Canaan’s own Mr. Ruprecht and the Upper West Side’s influential Mr. Loeb kiss and make up. Yesterday’s archenemies can be tomorrow’s BFFs when there is money to be made.

Art, From Conception to Birth in Qatar

Damien Hirst’s Anatomical Sculptures Have Their Debut

By Natalia V. Osipova

Damien Hirst Sculptures Unveiled: On Monday, the British artist Damien Hirst unveiled 14 monumental bronze sculptures in Doha, Qatar. The installation is considered a particularly bold move by the Qatar Museums Authority.

By CAROL VOGEL

Published: October 7, 2013

DOHA, Qatar — For weeks, 14 giant balloons had been mysteriously parked in front of the Sidra Medical and Research Center, a hulking steel, glass and white ceramic building devoted to women’s and children’s health that is to open on the outskirts of this city in 2015.

At 7 on Monday evening, to the amplified sound of a beating heart, members of Qatar’s royal family, government officials and local artists watched as each balloon, bathed in purple light, opened like a giant flower to reveal an unusually provocative public artwork. Called “The Miraculous Journey,” it consists of 14 monumental bronze sculptures, by the British artist Damien Hirst, chronicling the gestation of a fetus inside a uterus, from conception to birth, ending with a statue of a 46-foot-tall anatomically correct baby boy.

Even for a Persian Gulf country that is aggressively buying its way into modernity, this installation takes official acceptance of Western art to a new level. Local women still adhere to centuries-old Islamic traditions, wearing the abaya, a long cloak, and niqab, or face covering; images of women are routinely censored in books and magazines. Even the representation of the human form is unusual.

To commission such an audacious work of art is considered a particularly bold move for Sheikha al Mayassa Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, 30, chairwoman of the Qatar Museums Authority and a sister to the new emir of this oil- and gas-rich state. The sculptures are reported to have cost $20 million.

“To have something like this is less daring than having a lot of nudity,” said the sheikha, interviewed on Monday morning in her office at the Museum of Islamic Art, a modern, sun-filled space with sweeping views of the gulf. “There is a verse in the Koran about the miracle of birth,” she said. “It is not against our culture or our religion.”

Rather, she sees the sculptures as an extension of her mission to create a platform for contemporary artists from around the world, transforming this city of gleaming skyscrapers and sandy beaches into a center for arts and culture. Whether the public likes it or not, she believes, “it’s important to have an ongoing conversation.”

The museums authority has also organized a giant retrospective of Mr. Hirst’s work, “Relics,” which opens on Thursday.

Known as one of the most powerful forces in the international art world today, with exceptional buying power and forward thinking, Sheikha al Mayassa is a vocal advocate of contemporary art and arts education. She has been criticized by some as brazen or for embracing only celebrated artists, yet is praised by others for her commitment to the art of the new.

“She’s brave to introduce new visuals and new thoughts, especially in Doha, which is more conservative than other Middle Eastern cities,” said Nada Shabout, a professor of art history at the University of North Texas who works with the Arab Museum of Modern Art here. “Most of the Arab world has not seen public nudity. Sex is not taboo here, it’s just a very private affair. I have no idea how the public will react to these sculptures.”

Generally, the public does not take to the streets to voice disapproval and is considered unlikely to deface any public artwork. Instead, residents seize on social media platforms, like Twitter or blogs. After a 16-foot-tall bronze sculpture depicting one soccer player head-butting another was installed last week on the Corniche, a popular waterfront promenade here, some residents called online for its removal on the grounds that the sculpture, by the Algerian artist Adel Abdessemed, offended religious sensibilities. The sheikha shrugs off the criticism, saying that contemporary art is vital to the city’s landscape.

Purposely provocative, Mr. Hirst, 48, was long controversial in his own country, known for startling works that have included rotting cows positioned to simulate copulation; sharks and sheep preserved in formaldehyde; maggots attacking a cow’s head; and medicine cabinets full of hundreds of different kinds of drugs. Yet, in recent years, exposure to his work has been oversaturated in the United States and Europe.

He is fascinating to many, nonetheless, in a city like Doha. Sheikha al Mayassa recalled visiting Mr. Hirst’s studio in Gloucestershire, England, around 2009 and asking him to consider creating an outdoor sculpture.

Mr. Hirst showed her some drawings of prenatal and natal development he had made in 2005, from sperm to fetus to newborn. “I had always envisioned them to be monumental sculptures, and the sheikha had the idea of putting them in front of a woman’s hospital,” he said. (The installation’s full title is “The Miraculous Journey (2005 to 2013).”

It was a commission fraught with secrecy. “The first meeting I had with the architects, I was not allowed to tell them what the sculptures were because they wanted it to be a surprise,” he recalled. Most of the work, which took three years, was carried out in his studio in England.

There is nothing secret about them now: he positioned the sculptures so they can be seen both from the motorway and the desert. Together they weigh a total of 216 tons.

Wearing scruffy blue jeans and a white T-shirt, Mr. Hirst was watching workers put the finishing touches on his retrospective at Al Riwaq, a nondescript building — now covered in his signature dots — that is next to the Museum of Islamic Art, which was designed by I. M. Pei and opened in 2008.

Mr. Hirst said he became fascinated with childbirth after having children of his own. “Everyone talks about our life’s journey, but we have a whole journey before you’re born,” he explained.

Both Ms. Shabout and Zainab Bahrani, a professor of Near Eastern art and archaeology at Columbia University, pointed out that depictions of naked women bathing have been common throughout the history of Islamic art — for example, in ancient illuminated manuscripts. Such images are not, however, readily available to the population here.

“People are not aware here that it has a long tradition,” Ms. Shabout said.

Ms. Bahrani said: “I am sympathetic to the fact that art makes us feel uncomfortable, can challenge. On the other hand, you don’t want to shock. So it’s a fine line.”

But to Sheikha al Mayassa, it is one more step in the process of introducing art to Doha. Already she is planning two more museums here: the National Museum of Qatar, designed by Jean Nouvel, and the Orientalist Museum, designed by the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron.

Although the sheikha declined to confirm or deny the reported cost of Mr. Hirst’s sculptures, she said the outlay was “not a crazy number.”

“For us, it’s about the bigger picture,” she said. With an impish grin, she added: “Although he denies it, I think the baby is really Damien. It looks like him.”

When winds kicked up the other day, the balloon shrouding the baby boy accidentally blew off. Mr. Hirst, who was in London at the time, received an e-mail from Sheikha al Mayassa that read:

“Your baby appears to want to come early.”

By Hannah Sampson

hsampson@MiamiHerald.com