Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.
Happy Wednesday! Here’s a round-up of who’s moving and shaking in the art trade this week.
- Bonhams Opens New US Headquarters in Midtown Manhattan: The auction house’s official opening of its new 42,000-square-foot flagship at Steinway Hall comes with a month-long slate of exhibitions and cross-category sales.
- Bortolami Announces Representation of Nathlie Provosty: The New York gallery will present new works by Provosty at the Campus in Hudson, New York, and at Art Basel in Switzerland, both opening this June.
- Philadelphia Museum of Art Names Katherine Anne Paul Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art: From 2002 to 2008, Paul served as an assistant and associate curator at the museum. She was most recently at the Birmingham Museum of Art, where she has served as curator of Asian art since 2019.
- Lubaina Himid to Receive PAMM Fund for Black Art Acquisition Prize: The Turner Prize–winning artist’s painting Horn Seller (2023) will be acquired by PAMM. Himid will represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale this year.
- Cold Hollow Sculpture Park Appoints Robin Schatell Executive Director: The Vermont park named the longtime New York City Parks Foundation veteran to guide its next growth phase, with its first-ever commissioned artwork set to premiere this August.
- Deborah Schamoni Gallery Announces Representation of Mariann Metsis: The Berlin gallery has taken on the London-based painter, whose layered canvases explore memory, perception, and the passage of time.
- Freeman’s Appoints Daisy Edelson and Marc Peterman to Senior Leadership: The auction house named Edelson, a former Sotheby’s executive, as executive vice president, general manager of fine art, and Peterman as vice president, director of finance.
Big Number $800,000
That was the top reported sale price at Art Basel Qatar, achieved by White Cube, which sold eight sculptures from its solo presentation of Georg Baselitz. Other galleries reporting strong results included Thaddaeus Ropac, which sold works by Raqib Shaw for between £225,000 and £375,000; Sean Kelly, with sales ranging from $85,000 to $235,000; ATHR, which placed works by Ahmed Mater for $45,000 to $220,000; VeneKlasen, which sold six paintings by Issy Wood for between $35,000 and $190,000; and David Kordansky Gallery, which sold three paintings by Lucy Bull priced between $375,000 and $450,000.
Read This
Only in the art world might you encounter a saga involving Aldo Gucci, an eccentric watch magnate nicknamed the “Time Lord,” his amateur art historian granddaughter, a museum on the French Riviera, and an 1,800-work collection heavy on Jean Cocteau. If that sounds like your kind of story, head to the New York Times, where reporter Zachary Small lays out a yarn packed with skull-encrusted furniture, an escape from Nazi persecution via a convent, a purpose-built museum that fell into disrepair less than a decade after opening, and—most crucially—a legal battle between the city that built the museum and the Time Lord’s heirs, who say the municipality failed to uphold its end of the donation deal
