Christie and Sotheby’s achieved a billion dollars in sales this week in two New York record sales of contemporary art.  This area of the art market suffered badly in the early days of the recession but appears to have made a stellar recovery.  However, many dealers are nervous about these astonishing prices being paid whilst
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Dasha Zhukova, the glamorous girlfriend of Roman Abramovich and leading Contemporary Art Collector and Curator is moving her Garage Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow from the converted bus terminal designed by constructivist architect Konstantin Melnikov to a former restaurant in Gorky Park.  The transformation of the restaurant into an art gallery has been entrusted
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Ivan Lindsay, Tuesday, 6th November 2012 First Against the Wall Historically, when revolutions came, private art collections were dispersed almost as quickly as their owners were dispatched. THE RECENT BOOM in business at the free ports of Switzerland, Singapore and elsewhere indicates that art collectors are becoming increasingly concerned about where to keep their art.
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A Renoir sells at Christie’s. Orlando Rock, deputy chairman of Christie’s, offered up a detailed guide on how to buy art at auction published in an interview with John O’Ceallaigh in this week’s Telegraph newspaper.  Although doubling as a piece of PR for Christie’s, Rock has done his time at Christie’s, was for many years
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A new museum devoted solely to Russian and Soviet realist art from the 20th and 21st centuries has opened in Moscow,  The IRRA or Institute of Russian Realist Art. The institute has been put together by Russian businessman and billionaire Alexei Ananyev, who began collecting Russian realist paintings in 2001. Ananyev now has a collection of several thousand works, including
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Geli Mikhailovic Korzhev, prominent 20th century Russian painter, died this week after losing his leg recently.  Russia lost one its most important and interesting artists of the second half of the 20th century. Born in 1925 in Moscow, Korzhev’s philosophy and art was influenced by the social context and standards that defined life in the
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Friday, 31st August 2012 The Chelsea football club owner, Roman Abramovich won a high court action against Boris Berezovsky, over a disputed £3bn debt. Berezovsky, 66, was in the London courtroom and heard the judge, Mrs Justice Gloster, rule that he had lost his claim, which involved allegations of blackmail, breach of trust and breach
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Christie’s has announced the first major painting for its autumn sales in New York, an important Kandinsky which should sell well because it will attract both Russian and International bidding.  “Study For Improvisation 8” is from the artist’s “Improvisations” series and is being sold by the Volkart Foundation, a charitable trust established by the 160-year-old
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It has been rumoured for a few years that the astronomic growth rate attributed to the Chinese art market was exaggerated.  Western buyers who tried to participate in auctions on the Chinese mainland said it was difficult and that there was no clarity on what was going on or the final price achieved.  Western journalists
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Anita Singh – The Telegraph Viktor Vekselberg, one of the world’s richest men, paid £1.7 million for Odalisque, a nude said to be the  work of Russian artist Boris Kustodiev. The price was 10 times the pre-sale estimate and represented the “pure absurdity” of the art market, the court heard. Soon after the purchase in
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