«I LIKE MONEY ON THE WALL»

In the Impressionist and modern arena, 2009 was a decidedly less chaotic than for its younger sibling, largely because of its more conservative nature and the killer single-owner sale of the brand-name tastemaker Yves Saint Laurent in Paris at Christie’s (in association with Pierre Bergé & Associés). This one-off extravaganza, complete with the piped-in, ear-deafening sounds of Maria Callas, a fervent Saint Laurent superstar client, showed the world that people were still willing to pay crazy prices for art, circumstances allowing. Records dropped like Damien Hirst flies under the soaring glass-and-iron architecture of the Grand Palais, with numbers like €35,905,000 ($46,457,480 (est. €12–18 million) for the beautifully decorative Henri Matisse still life Les coucous, tapis blue et rose (1911), €29,185,000 ($37,762,472; est. €15–20 million) for Constantin Brancusi’s tribal-art-like Madame L.R. (Portrait de Mme L.R.) from 1914–17, and €21,569,000 ($27,908,129; est. €7–10 million for Piet Mondrian’s Composition avec bleu, rouge, jaune et noir (1922).Rare objets also shot heavenwards, such as Marcel Duchamp’s one-off talisman Belle haleine-Eau de violette from 1921, which sold for €8,913,000 ($11,532,531; est. €1–1.5 million). And it wasn’t just Yves Saint Laurent that buoyed and comfortably anchored the Impressionist & Modern ship; other sales here and there also burnished that category’s blue-chip veneer. Earlier in February, Edgar Degas’s 1922 but posthumously cast bronze Petite Danseuse de Quartorze Ans sold at Sotheby’s London for £13,257,250 ($18,823,969; est. £9–12 million). The dancer, which had last sold at the same house in February 2004 for £5

Art Info
Dec 30 2009