Philip Tsiaras art in Downtown Penthouse which hits the market record with a price tag $70 million

The Walker Tower penthouse that set a downtown Manhattan sales record last year has hit the market again, with a price tag of $70 million.

Neil Moffitt, CEO of Hakkasan Group, the restaurant and nightclub company, purchased the 6,000-square-foot penthouse less than a year and a half ago for $50.9 million. On Monday, the penthouse listed with an asking price nearly $20 million more than Moffitt paid, making it one of New York City’s more expensive listings.

The Walker Tower Residences, at 212 W. 18th Street in Manhattan, are a renovation of a 1929 Art Deco building that originally served as an office for the New York Telephone Company, and was later purchased by Verizon. JDS Development and Property MarketsGroup converted the building’s upper floors to condominiums. The building is known for thick walls; Cameron Diaz reportedly purchased an investment property there.

The penthouse condo encompasses the entire 24th floor, and is directly below the building’s roof garden, says Kamali Chandler of Sotheby’s International Real Estate, who has the listing. The penthouse contains five bedrooms and five full baths and a powder room. Outdoor terraces add an additional 479 square feet of living space. The condo has views of the Hudson River, the Manhattan Bridge, and Williamsburg, as well as north to the Empire State building. ”I’ve seen a lot of places but this one feels very  Zen,” Chandler says. “You feel so secluded and the views are probably the best I’ve ever seen in this city.”

The home has been staged for sale with large art, including a pair of Warhols that the listing agent  borrowed from a good friend who lives overseas. The purple “Circle of Life” painting is by the Greek artist Phillip Tsiaras; additional art is on loan from Cheryl Hazan, a gallery in Tribeca. The penthouse’s elegant, modern decor, which was staged for the showing, was a collaboration of several designers. The furniture and artwork is not included in the sale price.

 

The Fine art market just turned over 1 billion in 48 hours

Boom times for auction houses as Sotheby’s sale realizes $380 million (and that’s not including the jewellery).

It wasn’t quite as dramatic as the record-busting sale at its rival Christie’s on Monday, but the Contemporary Art Evening at auction-house Sotheby’s  BID -0.09% Tuesday still managed to drop a few jaws.

Sotheby’s said its auction realized $379.7 million, with the top prices being bid for works by Mark Rothko, Roy Liechtenstein and Jackson Pollock.

See the catalogue from Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening here.

Together with Christie’s “Looking Forward to the Past” sale Monday that spanned 100 years of modernist works, the two sales thus realized over $1 billion, an emphatic reminder of the giddying rise in fine art prices in the last couple of years. At the Christie’s auction, a cubist work by Pablo Picasso, ‘Les Femmes d’Alger (Version O)’ had set a new world record for any painting sold at auction, fetching $179.9 million.

Rothko’s ‘Untitled (Yellow and Blue) sold for $46.5 million, while Liechtenstein’s ‘The Ring (Engagement)’ went for $41.7 million, largely in line with expectations. A characteristic abstract work by Pollock from 1950 raised $18.3 million. The main surprise of the evening was Christopher Wool’s ‘Untitled (RIoT)’, which went for $29.9 million, double its pre-sale low estimate and a new record for the artist.

The value of the global art market grew an estimated 7% to a record 51 billion euros ($56 billion) last year, taking it for the first time above the pre-crisis peak of €48 billion, according to the European Fine Art Foundation in Maastricht, The Netherlands.

It isn’t just paintings that are fetching record prices either. Sotheby’s had earlier this week held the most valuable sale of jewellery in history at its Geneva branch in Switerland, raising the equivalent of $161.5 million. TEFAF estimates that high net-worth individuals (those with investable worth of over $1 million) spent more on jewellery, gems and watches last year than either antiques or art.

 

Art Basel Miami 2014

Art Basel Miami Beach - held at the Miami Beach Convention Center was the largest art fair of the week, featuring more than 250 top galleries from around the world. Design Miami (a major design fair) My favorite was the Perez Art Museum

Auction at Hotel Drouot

Hôtel Drouot is a large auction house in Paris, known for fine art, antiques, and antiquities. It consists of 16 halls hosting 70 independent auction firms, which operate under the umbrella grouping of Drouot.

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Parrish Art Museum, July 2014

The 2014 Midsummer Party raised $1.25 million with approximately 1,000 artists, philanthropists, business leaders, and world guests in attendance. 

View photos from the event here. 

Distinguished Guests: Veronica Atkins, Deborah Bancroft, Janna Bullock, Liliana Casabal, Melissa Chiu, Stewart Lane & Bonnie Comley, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Kyle DeWoody, Gale & Ira Drukier, Helene & Ziel Feldman, Wendy Finerman, Susan de Franca, Mary & Howard Frank, H. Peter Haveles Jr., Barbara Goldsmith, Kim Heirston, Dottie Herman, Caroline Hirsch, Lucia Hwong-Gordon, Tony Ingrao & Randy Kemper, Chad A. Leat, Sandra Lee, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Howard Lorber, Nicole Miller, Richard Mishaan, Alexandra Stanton & Sam Natapoff, Mary Kathryn & Alexander Navab, Charlene & James M. Nederlander, Margo MacNabb Nederlander & James L. Nederlander, Jamie Niven, Inga Maren Otto (Honoree), Katharina Otto-Bernstein (Honoree), Sandy & Stephen Perlbinder, Lisa Perry, Douglas Polley, Polina Proshkina, Hilary Geary & Wilbur Ross, Robin & Frederic M. Seegal, Jean & Martin Shafiroff, Ramona & Mario Singer, Barbara J. Slifka, Macia Dunn Sobel & Jonathan Sobel, Kelly & Jay Sugarman, Cynthia Clift & David K. Wassong, Arthur Zeckendorf

Artists: Alice Aycock, Jennifer Bartlett, Ross Bleckner, Bryan Hunt, Mel Kendrick, Maya Lin, Donald Lipski, Josephine Meckseper, Dan Rizzie, Dorothea Rockburne, Clifford Ross, Keith Sonnier, Ned Smyth, Donald Sultan, Robert Wilson, Joe Zucker

Tate Museum / London 2014

Tate holds the national collection of British art from 1500 to the present day and international modern and contemporary art. My favorite section was "Displays energy and Process"

Exposition of Salvador Dali, Centre Pompidou, Paris 2013

Together, Museo Reina Sofía and the Centre Georges Pompidou have organised a large exhibition devoted to Salvador Dalí. The exhibition is conceived as a contribution to the reappraisal of Dalí as a thinker, a writer and the creator of a very particular vision of the world.

Through a selection of over two hundred works (paintings, sculptures, drawings...) organised into eleven sections that follow something of a chronological order, this exhibition encourages visitors to rethink the place occupied by Salvador Dalí in the history of 20th century art, suggesting that his importance as a figure and his legacy stretch beyond his role as the architect of surrealism. The exhibition – the subtitle of which comes from his article "San Sebastián" (1927) which constituted his first artistic manifesto – examines how this controversial and prolific creator, of unmatched imagination, was capable of generating perturbing art that speaks directly to spectators. An art that, reflecting the scientific discoveries of the times, explores and expands the boundaries of consciousness and of sensorial and cognitive experience.

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Exposition of Edward Hooper, The Grand Palais, Paris 2012

The Grand Palais in Paris always seems to be organise quality exhibitions that appeal to the genral public. After Warhol, Picasso and Monet, this Edward Hopper exhibition is another example. The painter, known above all for his paintings of the United States, first honed his art in Paris in the early 20th century before returning to New York to perfect his melancolic style, often showing scenes from the everyday life of the American middle class..

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