The George Lindemann Journal by George Lindemann

Cindy Sherman/Metro Pictures, via Sotheby's

 

ARTIST Cindy Sherman

TITLE 'Untitled #91'

AUCTION HOUSE Sotheby's

ESTIMATE $800,000 to $1.2 million

Although Ms. Sherman already has a considerable fan base, her blockbuster retrospective on view at the Museum of Modern Art through June 11 has enhanced her popularity.

This season works by Ms. Sherman from various years and series are for sale at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips de Pury. This 1981 image is from her famous “Centerfold Series,” a group of portraits inspired by photographs in Playboy but with the women in clothes and conveying a complicated mix of emotions.

The estimate may seem steep considering that the Museum of Modern Art purchased her entire “Untitled Film Series” — a group of 69 prints — for a reported $1 million in 1995. But another image from the “Centerfold Series,” “Untitled #96,” brought nearly $4 million a year ago, a record for her work at auction.

Edvard Munch's iconic painting, "The Scream," broke a world record tonight, becoming the most expensive artwork sold in an auction.

Estimates for the sale varied from $80 million to $200 million. The artwork -- which is not a painting but is pastel on cardboard -- ended up selling for $119,922,500, surpassing the previous record-holder, Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust," which sold for $106.5 million in 2010. Cezanne's "The Card Players" has the honor of going for the highest price, period (meaning not at auction) -- it was sold in a private sale to Qatar (yes, the country) for $250 million last year.

Check out our liveblog below of the highs and, well, higher highs, of the Sotheby's auction. Learn about the oft-stolen other versions of "The Scream" that Munch painted, as well as the exalted company of record-breakers he now keeps. And because nothing sets the mood for an ex post facto liveblog quite like blood and tongues, do read the text below of Munch's inscription, which appears on tonight's history-making work:

"I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city.

My friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."

 

Christie's

 

ARTIST Gerhard Richter

TITLE 'Abstraktes Bild (798-3)'

AUCTION HOUSE Christie's

ESTIMATE $14 million to $18 million

This dreamy 1993 canvas is sure to be a winner when it comes up for sale on May 8. Prices for the 80-year-old Mr. Richter have been steadily rising, helped in large part by a highly praised retrospective at the Tate Modern in London this winter, which is now at the National Gallery in Berlin and will be heading to the Pompidou Center in Paris in June. Last year alone some $200 million worth of works by Mr. Richter sold at auction. “It’s eye candy for the emerging buyer,” Mr. Gorvy said. The size of the canvas — it is nearly eight feet square — make it particularly impressive as does the masterly layering of colors, which is at once romantic and modern. It is being sold by Lyn Ross, the widow of George Ross, a financier from Bryn Mawr, Pa., who died in July.

 

Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times

The work, a pastel on board, is one of four versions created by Edvard Munch; the other three are in museums in Norway. The buyer bid over the telephone.

By CAROL VOGEL

Published: May 2, 2012

It took 12 nail-biting minutes and five eager bidders for Edvard Munch’s famed 1895 pastel of “The Scream” to sell for $119.9 million, becoming the world’s most expensive work of art ever to sell at auction.

 Bidders could be heard speaking Chinese and English (and, some said, Norwegian), but the mystery winner bid over the phone, through Charles Moffett, Sotheby’s executive vice president and vice chairman of its worldwide Impressionist, modern and contemporary art department. Gasps could be heard as the bidding climbed higher and higher, until there was a pause at $99 million, prompting Tobias Meyer, the evening’s auctioneer, to smile and say, “I have all the time in the world.” When $100 million was bid, the audience began to applaud.

The price eclipsed the previous record, made two years ago at Christie’s in New York when Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” brought $106.5 million.

Munch made four versions of “The Scream.” Three are now in Norwegian museums; the one that sold on Wednesday, a pastel on board from 1895, was the only one still in private hands. It was sold by Petter Olsen, a Norwegian businessman and shipping heir whose father was a friend, neighbor and patron of the artist.

The image has been reproduced endlessly in popular culture in recent decades, becoming a universal symbol of angst and existential dread and nearly as famous as the Mona Lisa.

Outside of Sotheby’s, there was excitement of a different kind, as demonstrators protesting the company’s longtime lockout of art handlers waved placards with the image of “The Scream” along with the motto, “Sotheby’s: Bad for Art.” Many in the group — a mix of union members and Occupy Wall Street protesters — even screamed themselves when the Munch went on the block. (Munch’s work was an apt focus for the group, said one protester, Yates McKee: “It exemplifies the ways in which objects of artistic creativity become the exclusive province of the 1 percent.”)

Inside, the atmosphere generated by the Munch’s record price carried through the rest of the auction, which saw high prices for everything from Picasso paintings to sculptures by Giacometti and Brancusi.

Of the 76 lots on offer, 15 failed to sell. The evening’s total was $330.56 million, close to its high estimate of $323 million. (Final prices include the buyer’s commission to Sotheby’s: 25 percent of the first $50,000; 20 percent of the next $50,000 to $1 million and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)

As is often true of auctions with star attractions, having “The Scream” for sale helped win other business. Its inclusion was a draw, for example, for the estate of Theodore J. Forstmann, the Manhattan financier, who died in November. The top work in his collection was Picasso’s “Femme Assise Dans un Fauteuil,” a 1941 portrait of Dora Maar, the artist’s muse and lover, posed in a chair. The painting went for $26 million, or $29.2 million with fees, within its estimated $20 million to $30 million.

In 2004, Mr. Forstmann bought Soutine’s “Le Chasseur de chez Maxim’s,” a 1925 portrait of an employee at the celebrated French restaurant, for $6.7 million at a Sotheby’s auction. It had belonged to Wendell Cherry, vice chairman of the Louisville-based health care company Humana, who died in 1991, and his wife, Dorothy. On Wednesday night the painting was up for sale again, this time with a $10 million to $15 million estimate, which turned out to be optimistic. Two bidders went for the Soutine, which ended up selling to a telephone bidder, working through Mr. Moffett, for $8.3 million, or $9.3 million with fees.

More popular, however, was an 1892 Gauguin landscape, “Cabane Sous les Arbres,” which Mr. Forstmann had bought at Christie’s in 2002 for $4.6 million. On Wednesday night it was estimated to sell for $5 million to $7 million, but there were four bidders for the canvas, and it sold for $8.4 million.

Surrealism has been the rage recently, and Sotheby’s had many examples to sell. Among the best was Dalí’s “Printemps Nécrophilique,” a 1936 painting that once belonged to Elsa Schiaparelli, the Paris couturier closely associated with the Surrealist movement who collaborated on designs with Dalí. Six bidders fought over the painting, which went for $16.3 million, well above its $12 million high estimate.

Another popular Surrealist image was Ernst’s “Leonora in the Morning Light,” a 1940 painting that depicts his lover, Leonora Carrington, a Mexican artist of English birth, emerging from a lush jungle. It brought $7.9 million, above its $5 million high estimate.

A gilded bronze head that Brancusi conceived and cast in 1911 was another of the evening’s top sellers, bringing $12.6 million, well above its $6 million to $8 million estimate.

But it was the record price for “The Scream” that captured everyone’s imagination. As soon as the hammer fell, rumors began circulating about who the buyer could be. Among the names floated were the financier Leonard Blavatnik, the Microsoft tycoon Paul Allen and members of the Qatari royal family.

While some were surprised at the price, one Munch enthusiast was not: “It’s nice to see the centrality of Norway in the mainstream of western culture,” said Ivor Braka, a London dealer. “The scream is more than a painting, it’s a symbol of psychology as it anticipates the 20th-century traumas of mankind.”

Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 2, 2012

 

A earlier version of this article misspelled the of surname of Theodore J. Forstmann, the Manhattan financier, as Fortsmann. It also incorrectly described the position Wendell Cherry, who died in 1991, had held at Humana. He was not chairman.