Pablo Picasso, Women of Algiers (Version O), 1955. Click on image to enlarge.
The Wall Street Journal’s Kelly Crow reports that Christie’s will offer a Picasso painting at its May 11 auction in New York that could top the $142.4 million achieved two years ago by a Francis Bacon triptych, “Three Studies of Lucian Freud.”
The pre-sale estimate for “Women of Algiers (Version O)” of 1955 will be approximately $140 million.
According to the article:
The work comes from a 15-work series, designated by letters of the alphabet, that Picasso painted between late 1954 and early 1955. The entire group originally sold to the Ganz family for $212,500 and most were later resold separately for far more.
…
Christie’s said the seller of the Picasso remains anonymous, but the work last changed hands 18 years ago when the estate of U.S. collectors Victor and Sally Ganz sold it through the auction house to a London dealer for $31.9 million.
Ellen Kinsella at Artnet News writes:
[T]he Picasso … is the centerpiece of another innovative auction, titled “Looking Forward to the Past,” curated by Christie’s contemporary wunderkind Loïc Gouzer, the same specialist behind last spring’s much-hyped “If I Live I’ll See You Tuesday.” That sale featured contemporary art by the likes of Richard Prince and Christopher Wool and took in $134.6 million (see: Christie’s New Contemporary Sale: A Thumping $135 Million Success and Art Market Analysis: Richard Prince vs. Christopher Wool).
