Pursuits
John Thain's Picasso Fetches $29.6 Million as Auctions Start
- Christie’s sale totaled $279 million, down 42% from year ago
- Tamara de Lempicka, Hans Arp set artist auction records
Pablo Picasso’s “La Lampe,” left, at a gallery in New York.
Photographer: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Works by Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso led Christie’s mixed auction of Impressionist and modern art on Sunday in New York.
The total was $279.2 million, below the low estimate of $305 million, and 42 percent less than the similar auction a year ago. Of the 61 offered lots, 15 percent failed to find buyers, including a Vincent Van Gogh painting that was estimated at about $40 million.