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CyTwombly

Celebrating Cy Twombly's 80th Birthday

Filed under: Art

Famed Abstract Expressionist Cy Twombly's 80th birthday is being celebrated with a major new touring retrospective. It just opened at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which notes that he is "one of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century's most influential artists."

To coincide with these events D.A.P. has published a comprehensive overview of Twombly's work titled Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons, a must-have for any serious connoisseur of contemporary art. Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening Sotheby's will auction off an important Twombly work, 1986's two-part Untitled, estimated at $4 - $6 million. We expect his work will prove recession-proof.

$70 Million Francis Bacon Stars in Sotheby's Sale

Filed under: Auctions, Art


A Francis Bacon triptych painted in 1976 is expected to fetch about $70 million in the star sale of Sotheby's Contemporary Art auction in New York on May 14. If the work, billed as the most important privately-held Bacon extant, does max out despite all the hand-wringing going on, the price will eclipse Impressionist claptrap like this $40 million Monet while still falling far short of some puffed-up Picassos. (The middle panel is pictured here; see the image gallery for the complete piece.) Back in February, a Bacon triptych sold for $46.1 million at Christie's in London, slightly below estimate, though the one currently on offer is the better work in our opinion.

Also included in the stunning sale is Mark Rothko's 1956 Orange, Red, Yellow, expected to fetch in excess of $35 million; Jean-Michel Basquiat's beautiful Untitled (Prophet I), est. $9 - $12 million; Robert Rauschenberg's 1963 Overdrive, est. $10 - $15 million; Richard Prince's Millionaire Nurse, est. $3.5 - $4.5 million; a 1986 Andy Warhol self-portrait, est. $2 - $3 million; an untitled Cy Twombly, est. $1.5 - $2 million; and a very naughty manga-inspired sculpture by Louis Vuitton collaborator Takashi Murakami, valued at an astonishing $3 - $4 million.

Woman Arrested for Kissing $2.7 Million Dollar Painting

Filed under: Art

Normally a kiss as a sign of affection is a good thing, but when it happens in an art gallery on a $2.7 million dollar painting it's not only not a good thing -- it's a crime. It happened last Thursday in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Avignon, France. The woman, 30-year-old Sam Rindy, had apparently been admiring a 9'x6' bone white painting by Cy Twombly valued at over £1 million and was suddenly overcome and just had to kiss it. She's quoted as saying "The artist left this white for me."

Yeah, well it's not white anymore since there's a lipstick imprint left behind. Ms. Rindy is awaiting trial on August 16 for "damage to a work of art."

How stupid can you be?


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