Picasso painting sells for $67.5 million at New York auction

NEW YORK, Could 17 (Reuters) – The 1932 Pablo Picasso portray “Femme nue couchée” bought for $67.5 million on Tuesday at its public sale debut at Sotheby’s in New York, the latest massive sale at public sale for blue-chip artwork.

The eight-digit sale value comes per week after Andy Warhol’s 1964 silk-screen portrait of Marilyn Monroe fetched $195 million at Christie’s, setting a document for a piece by an American artist bought at public sale.

Public sale home Sotheby’s had predicted the Picasso portray, a surrealistic depiction of his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, to promote in extra of $60 million. Tuesday’s value falls wanting different portraits of Marie-Thérèse, one among which fetched $103.4 million at Christie’s final yr.

“Femme nue couchée,” which interprets from French to “Nude Reclining Girl,” reveals Marie-Thérèse as a many-limbed sea creature along with her head tilted again in profile. Her love of swimming and her grace within the water impressed the allusion to the ocean, as Picasso himself couldn’t swim, in response to Sotheby’s.

Marie-Thérèse was 17 years outdated when she met the 45-year-old Picasso in Paris. They started a secret relationship whereas he was nonetheless married to his first spouse, Russian-Ukrainian ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova. Marie-Thérèse grew to become his mannequin for various work and sculptures and gave start to his daughter, Maya Widmaier-Picasso.

“Femme nue couchée” was born out of a very inventive and pivotal yr for Picasso. Newly 50, he had already achieved widespread fame by 1932 however ramped up his ambitions to silence critics who questioned “whether or not he was an artist of the previous moderately than the longer term,” in response to the Tate Fashionable museum.

Amy Cappellazzo, the previous head of Sotheby’s international fantastic artwork division, bought the portray at Sotheby’s Fashionable Night Sale in New York. She left the public sale home final yr.

The vendor acquired the work in 2008 from Picasso’s heirs, who had held it for many years, in response to Sotheby’s. Trade publication Artnet recognized the vendor as hedge fund billionaire and New York Mets proprietor Steve Cohen.

A Claude Monet oil portray from 1908 exhibiting a view of Venice, Italy, additionally bought for $56.6 million on Tuesday.

Reporting by Ben Kellerman; Modifying by Lincoln Feast.

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