The Matsart auction house in Jerusalem reports that proceeds in its art auction last Wednesday totaled $2.8 million. 70 of the 170 art works offered at the auction, 40%, were sold. The highest price paid was for a painting by Marc Chagall, "The Blue Bird": $317,000, compared with an estimate of $130,000. A portraitof a young girl by Pierre Auguste Renoir sold for $245,000, and a painting by Amedeo Modigliani, "The Apache," sold for $149,000.
Matsart estimates that 70% of the buyers are overseas residents, including some who sent representatives to attend the auction. 30% of the sales were made by telephone and 15% online. Matsart, owned by Lucien Krief, conducts sales in Israel (mainly in Jerusalem), but appeals mainly to an international clientele. The auction house gets most of its art works from Jewish collectors around the world, some of them haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) who do not frequent the large auction houses. Some of the art works are kept in the company's gallery in New York for reasons of taxes, insurance, and shipping expenses.
Matsart's sales feature a combination of impressionist andmodern art, without nudity or provocative figures. Among the modernistic art works sold was an op art work by Pierre Vasarely for $221,000. An Andy Warhol portrait of Elizabeth Taylor sold for $87,500, compared with a $58,000estimate. The sale included works by current artists from China, Japan, India, and Argentina.
Next Friday, the Montefiore auction house will conduct its monthly mid-day auction, with Israeli and international art works at relatively low prices. Works by Aviva Uri, Menashe Kadishman, Michael Argov, Leo (Lior) Roth, and others will be put up for auction. The art works can be viewed before the auction at the gallery at 36 Gordon St. in Tel Aviv. The sales take place simultaneously on the www.invaluable.com website.
On Saturday night, the Yair Gallery will hold an auction of Israeli and international art on the bidspirit.com auction website, with works by Kadishman, Michael Druks, and Buky Schwartz from the 1960s and 1970s, works by Moshe Kupferman from the Yona Fischer collection, and works by Anna Ticho from the late Supreme Court Justice Haim Cohn's collection, in addition to works by current artists exhibiting at the Yair Gallery, such as Gilead Keydar, Shuli Bar Navon, Shahar Kornblit, Ilana Salama-Ortar, and others. The works are on display before the auction at the Yair Gallery at 6 Ibn Gvirol St. in Tel Aviv and on the gallery website.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 16, 2015
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