From ArtNet:
The $450 Million Marron Collection Is the Art Market’s Ultimate Prize. Now, Three of the World’s Top Rival Galleries Are Joining Forces to Sell It
The heirs' decision to avoid the auction block comes as a surprise to the art world
In an unprecedented move that is likely to send shock waves through the art industry, three top galleries are joining forces to sell the storied collection of late philanthropist Donald Marron. While it was widely assumed that Christie’s or Sotheby’s would handle the estate, particularly after news surfaced that the auction houses were scrambling to submit proposals last month, the collection will instead be sold jointly by Pace, Gagosian, and Acquavella. The arrangement is the strongest sign yet that the traditional lines between galleries and auction houses are blurring.....MORE
The group of some 300 works—reportedly worth upwards of $450 million—includes major paintings by such titans of Modern art as Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, and Cy Twombly. The collection, assembled over the course of six decades, will be shown at Gagosian and Pace’s Chelsea galleries in May....
Back to the days of Duveen?
See also September 2019's "Sotheby’s and Christie’s expand private sales"
Ha, Duveen lives!
On Duveen, the King of private sales,
From the intro to September 2013's "Duveen: The Greatest Salesman Ever":I've mentioned Joseph Duveen a few times, most recently in the intro to 2011's "Wildenstein: The Art World's Most Powerful Dealer Family".
Today his name came up because of a long form post at Quartz: "High-end art is one of the most manipulated markets in the world" that I'll link to again as tomorrow's weekend read.
Joe Duveen went from being one of thirteen children of a successful Jewish-Dutch importer to being
1st (and last) Baron Duveen, all because of a simple observation:
"Europe has a great deal of art, and America has a great deal of money."On that "Great deal of money", his buy-side clients included J.P. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, William Randolph Hearst, Henry Huntington, Jules Bache , Andrew Mellon and John D. Rockefeller.
On the sell-side various European Aristos e.g. the seller of the painting below, the landlord known as the Duke of Westminster.
There have been two biographies of Duveen, the first by Behrman is better written but contained errors while the later one by Meryle Secrest is more accurate in the details, partly because she had access to the Getty Museum's hundreds of linear feet of business records and ephemera:
Duveen Brothers Resources
We have been planning to serialize Behrman's six New Yorker articles on Duveen, here's a taste of the first one, from 1951:....
And related:
Not Smooth Enough To be An Art Advisor? Be An Art Attorney!
"Sotheby’s Hires Wall Street Vet to Head Private Sales" (BID)
"...So Loria turned $12m into $1.6bn over two decades"
