Halsey Minor Sells Off His Art Collection

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
May 17th 2010 at 10:01PM

CNET founder Halsey Minor is a little closer to paying off some of his debts this week. A sale of his 22 artworks sold for $21,049,050 at Phillips de Pury & Company. Pieces include "Nurse in Hollywood #4" by Richard Prince (sold for $6.5 million) and an aluminum couch by Marc Newson( $2.1 million). The sales will go a long way toward paying off a $21.6 million judgment won by ML Private Finance, a Bank of America affiliate, on a delinquent loan owed by Minor. Bloomberg News reports that fashion designer Marc Jacobs, art dealer Larry Gagosian and jeweler Laurence Graff were in attendance at the auction.

Minor isn't quite out of the financial woods yet. Last month Sotheby's won a $6.6 million judgment against Minor after they sued for breach of contract ($4.4 million to the auction house plus another $2.2 million in interest and related fees). Minor has asserted that the auction house had failed to disclose an ownership interest in one work and he had not gotten a fair deal. He plans to appeal the the judgment. He is also battling Christie's saying that the auction house mishandled a consignment involving art by Prince. Christie's has also sued Minor over default on payments for $13 million worth of art bought at auction.

Tags: christies, halsey minor, marc jacobs, marc newsom, phillips de pury, richard prince