Pain of parting with art offset by $7.4 million
Works by Jeff Koons and Paul McCarthy were among those sold by Germany’s “punk princess.”
Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis likes motorcycles and rock stars, lavish parties and jewels. She is known among the international jet set as the “punk princess” who collects contemporary art. But sometimes, she cleans house.
On Monday night she put 50 works by some of today’s trendiest artists — including Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman and Paul McCarthy — up for sale at Phillips, dePury & Co. (Phillips auctioned 85 more works from her collection on Tuesday morning.)
Although the princess was not in attendance at Phillips’ Chelsea salesroom Monday, her two daughters, Elisabeth and Maria Theresia, were there, videotaping the proceedings. Their mother will no doubt be pleased by what she sees.
The sale totaled $6.3 million, or $7.4 million with Phillips’ commission. (Prices of record include the commission.) The high estimate was $7 million.
In 1993 the princess held a nine-day sale of furniture, art and objects from Schloss St. Emmeram, the family castle in Regensburg, Bavaria — everything from a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to 75,000 bottles of vintage wine.
That sale, which brought more than $19 million, went to pay inheritance taxes on the estate of her husband, Prince Johannes, who died in 1990.
In 1992, she had already sold much of the family jewels, also at Sotheby’s. Simon de Pury, chairman of Phillips, then chairman of Sotheby’s in Europe, presided over both events, and he and the princess became friends.
Buying with an eye for profit
De Pury recently put her on Phillips’ board. And Monday night she showed her support for him and for the company by weeding out much of her collection. (Art dealers familiar with her collection say she has held onto the best work.)
Before the auction, some dealers grumbled that the princess had bought many of the works recently in anticipation of turning them around at this auction to make a profit.
Many also said the offerings were mediocre in quality. But that didn’t seem to diminish the enthusiasm for contemporary art; even works made just months ago sold for strong prices. Records were set for eight artists.
But compared with the big-ticket postwar and contemporary artworks for sale at Sotheby’s and Christie’s this week, these offerings seemed cheap. In fact, no single item made $1 million.
The most expensive work was Paul McCarthy’s “Santa Long Neck,” a 2004 painted bronze sculpture of a distorted Santa Claus. It sold to a telephone bidder for $856,000, well over its $700,000 high estimate and a record for the artist at auction.
There was less competition for Koons’ “Yorkshire Terriers,” a polychromed wood sculpture of two dogs, one wearing a blue bow, the other a pink one. It is from an edition of three plus an artist’s proof that Koons made in 1991. Only one bidder wanted the sculpture, and the hammer fell at $550,000, just under the low estimate of $600,000.
Who got the joke?
Sometimes there was serious competition. The princess was selling two joke paintings — plain-colored canvases from the 1980s with the text of jokes — by Richard Prince, whose prices have skyrocketed over the past two years.
Stellan Holm, a Manhattan dealer, and Hyun Sook Lee, president of the Kukje Gallery, one of the most successful galleries in South Korea, fought over “Untitled (A Man Walks Into a Doctor’s Office)” from 1988.
Both wanted the painting badly, and the winner was Lee, who paid $475,200, far above its $350,000 high estimate. Prince’s “Why Are You Crying?” (1988) was less popular and less expensive. Todd Levin, the curator for the Manhattan collector Adam Sender, bought it for $296,000, above its low estimate of $250,000.
Photography sold, but not for tremendous prices. Among the best photographs was Andreas Gursky’s “Chicago Mercantile Exchange,” one of an edition of six from 1997. Three bidders went for the image, which sold to an unidentified buyer for $352,000, after a low estimate of $300,000.
The way even brand new works sold surprised many. Anselm Kiefer’s 2005 sculpture “XXI Claudia Quinta,” made of lead books stacked precariously and topped with a model ship and human hair, was bought by James Cohan, the Manhattan dealer, for $340,800, far above its high estimate of $300,000.
After the sale, de Pury said it did not represent the end of the princess’ collecting.
“It is her intention,” he said, “to keep buying art that is right now.”
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