Tag Archives: auctions

Yves Saint Laurent Collection at Auction

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Legendary clothes designer Yves Saint Laurent died last June at his residence in Paris, where he and his partner Pierre Bergé had created a house of style in bricks and mortar. Their art collection is now hitting the auction block at Christies this February. The collection is a testament to Saint Laurent’s style in its wide-ranging combination of mediums, time periods and styles.

Quite conveniently, just as this collection comes to auction another style maven, moi, is moving to a new apartment and is in serious need of furnishings. Thus I did some online shopping at Christie’s.
First there are practical matters to consider: how to sit, how to drink martinis, and how to eat cereal. My solutions:
Reading Chair


Amazing Silver and Coral Spoons

YSL bar: now that’s a beautiful thing.

But what shall I contemplate, not that I’m set up in that luxurious chair, enjoying a martini and cereal? Leger’s Profile and Hooch’s Parrot, I think. Then for sheer exuberance I’ll add Calder’s Dancers and Sphere. But I’ll have to find a table on which to display it.

Fernand Leger, The Black Profile

Pieter de Hooch, A Young Woman Feeding A Parrot Alexander Calder, Dancers and Sphere


This style, as I like to call it, is ‘Manhattan Spartan-Chic,’ combining essential luxuries in limited space. My new apartment will be a joy once I purchase these lovelies. There were many other temptations, but a blogger can only afford so much. As it is, I won’t have any funds leftover for Vermouth.

News Alert! Obama Cannot Save Art

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Yesterday the stock market dropped 486 points, despite the fact that most of the world is excited to have a new president coming into office. The economy seems to be entering the big “R” (recession) despite all that hope and change rigmarole. Let’s relate this to the art market.

Without actually reading any of the articles below, what can we surmise from their headlines?

New York Times:
Bleak Night at Christie’s, in Both Sales and Prices

BBC:
Top art fails to sell at auction

Yesterday’s headlines from The Art Newspaper:
Auction houses embark on damage limitation exercise as market slumps
After years of growth, a long way to fall?
“Hot” categories cool rapidly as crisis bites

Anyone have an idea what this means? Any wild guesses? No…well, let’s look at this chart from The Art Newspaper’s “After Years of Growth” article, which ends in September 2008:

Note how the lines, representing different prices points, went way up. Now see my graph, using advanced scientific formulas and graphing software, to irrefutably predict the future:

Countless people, like your prudent parents, and articles will be telling you how to save money in the upcoming recession, stretch your dollar, etc. Well, I won’t tell you that. I’m telling you

BUY BUY BUY!

Buy what you love. Do it now if you are at all in a position to do so. Snatch up that cheap Chinese masterpiece or contemporary cutting edge foot statue you’ve been eyeing. This is your chance.

I would if I could.