Hell Drivers 1959 - Alastair Sooke TV - The World’s Most Beautiful Eggs: The Genius of Carl Faberge - Sold! Inside the World’s Busiest Auction House TV - Jacques Peretti TV - Art of the Heist TV - The New Statesman TV - The Adventurers of Modern Art TV - Auction TV - Banksy & the Rise of Outlaw Art TV - Princess Margaret: The Unlucky Princess TV - Conspiracies Decoded TV - Blurred Lines: Inside the Art World TV - Play for Today TV -
You know, I don’t like your attitude. Hell Drivers 1959 starring Herbert Lom & Patrick McGoohan & Stanley Baker & Peggy Cummins & William Hartnell & Sidney James & Wilfrid Lawson & Jill Ireland & Alfie Bass & Gordon Jackson & David McCallum & Sean Connery & Vera Day et al, director Cy Endfield, McGoohan to Baker
Just what is the link between art and money? Alastair Sooke, The World’s Most Expensive Paintings, BBC 2011
Value isn’t only linked to quality. Something that can send the price of a painting rocketing is what’s known in the art world as provenance. ibid.
Including Commission:
10) Mark Rothko, White Centre $72,840,000, Sothebys, New York 2007
9) Peter Paul Ruben’s Massacre of the Innocents, $76,529,058, sold 2002
8) Renoir, Au Moulin de la Galette, $78,100,000
7) Claude Monet’s Water Lily Pond, $80,379,591
6) Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Dr Gachet, $82,500,000
They leapt to their feet, they cheered, they yelled ... My feeling was one of, I have to admit it, really great distaste ... They weren’t applauding for Van Gogh, they weren’t applauding for the work of art, they were applauding for money. Christopher Burge, Christie’s Auction House
Whatever Saito’s motives were for buying the Van Gogh and the Renoir he faced financial ruin soon afterwards. Extraordinarily, he threatened to burn the paintings rather than sell them. In 1996 he died. And the paintings haven’t been seen since. Alastair Sooke
5) Francis Bacon, Triptych, $86,281,000, Southerby’s New York, 2008
4) Gustav Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer II, $87,936,000 2006
Additional: Neue Galerie, 5th Avenue New York, another Adele Bloch-Bauer: One of the most famous pictures in the world ... Ultimately, it’s a portrait about infatuation, not just infatuation with a beautiful woman, infatuation with high society ... Paid the notorious price, reportedly, of $135,000,000 for this painting alone in a private transaction. Alastair Sooke
3) Picasso, Dora Maar au Chat, $95,216,000, Southerby’s 2006
2) Picasso, Garcon a la Pipe, $104,168,000, 2004
1A) Picasso, La Reve, Christie’s New York ... In 2006 he [Steve Wynn of Las Vegas] agreed to sell La Reve, which means The Dream, for $139,000,000. But before the deal was done he put his elbow through the canvas, and suddenly the deal was off.
1) Picasso, Nude, Green Leaves & Bust, $106,482,500
They’ve agreed to lend it to Tate Modern in London for two years. ibid.
In April 2004 it was listed for auction by Sotherby’s in New York. The upper estimate was an astonishing $24 million … Part of a collection of nine imperial Easter eggs amassed over the previous forty years by the Forbes Foundation in New York. But that sale never took place. The World’s Most Beautiful Eggs: The Genius of Carl Faberge, BBC 2013
Fabergé made just fifty of these unique pieces. ibid.
Christie’s is the world’s largest auction house. At the crossroads of art, taste and money it brings together great works of art, fervent collectors, world-beating prices, and the fine art of the sell. This year this great British brand celebrate its 250th anniversary. Sold! Inside the World’s Biggest Auction House, BBC 2016
Will they stay at the top of their £5-billion-a-year game? ibid.
Anyone can just wander in. ibid.
When James Christie founded his firm, George III was on the throne. ibid.
Ten years ago Christie’s became the first art auctioneers to open up in Dubai. ibid.
Christie’s don’t just wait for buyers they go after them. ibid.
Modigliani $170.4 million; Francis Bacon’s Triptych $148.4 million; Picasso $179.3 million. ibid.
New York: now located at the swanky Rockefeller address. ibid.
Some sellers are so desperate that bargains can be had, but most put a reserve price below which the auctioneer cannot sell, and it becomes a pass. ibid.
They can create an appearance of interest in the room to push up bids and it’s quite legal. ibid.
Twenty years ago Christie’s went beyond the rules fixing commissions with apparent rivals Sotherby’s. ibid.
A company at the epicentre of a secret and private world. Sold! Inside the World’s Biggest Auction House II
Special Sale: Defining British Art: ‘No more than thirty lots … a very British sale … so the ask was a big one.’ ibid. Jussi
James Christie used to throw private parties that were THE place to be in London 250 years ago. It was a way of softening up potential clients. ibid.
Asian art is selling well. ibid.
‘Any interest in the lot at $100? Pass.’ … I knew things were bad but not this bad. No-one, literally no-one, cared about Jackson any more. Jacques Peretti, Michael Jackson: What Really Happened? Las Vegas auction, BBC 2007
The Klimts were going up for auction. Art of the Heist s2e1: The Lady in Gold, 2008
I’d like to make a telephone bid in the Grand Total Collapse of the British Economy liquidation sale. The New Statesman s4e5: A Bigger Splash, ITV 1992
Everyone was eager to see the Cubists come to auction. The Adventurers of Modern Art II: Picasso & His Gang, Sky Arts 2015
Christie’s are billing it as the greatest artistic rediscovery of the 21st century: Salvator Mundi is one of fewer than 20 known paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and the only one in private hands. Sent to auction by a Russian businessman who once owned one of the most expensive art collections ever assembled, this almost mystical work will be sold in Christie’s New York showrooms … Auction, Sky Arts 2020
In October 2018 the anonymous street artist known as Banksy published this video online. In it he can be seen preparing a custom frame for his panting, Girl with Balloon. The painting is about to be offered for sale at Sotherby’s. Banksy & the Rise of Outlaw Art, Sky Arts 2021
As the hammer struck, the work started to fall through the frame, and as it did it shredded, and everyone witnessed in horror as it was destroyed. It caused a huge stir. ibid.
In June 2006, four years after Princess Margaret had died, the auction house Christie’s sold her possessions for the sun nearly £14 million. Princess Margaret: The Unlucky Princess aka Princess Margaret: Rebel Without a Crown, Channel 5 2022
Christie’s Auction House, New York: A painting, Salvator Mundi or Saviour of the World, goes under the hammer for $450 million. A newly discovered Leonardo da Vinci is snapped up by Saudi royalty. But as soon as this painting is sold many begin to question its authenticity. Conspiracies Decoded s1e4: Yellowstone Supervolcano, DiscoveryPlus 2022
£111m Damien Hirst total sets record for one-artist auction. Blurred Lines: Inside the Art World, news headline, Netflix 2017
Gallery geezer #1: Must be a very late one. I’ve never come across it before.
Gallery geezer #2: Well it’s been out of circulation. Play for Today: Under the Hammer, BBC 1984
Gallery geezer #3: However much I look at it I don’t like it. ibid.
Plundered … stolen pictures … I thought it was interesting … ibid. porter’ talk
American geezer was here – reckons it was a fake. ibid.
I wish you’d kicked McClaren … If only you’d done it half an hour earlier … Absolute discretion, you understand? ibid. gallery geezer
We should go into the possibility of a discreet repair. ibid.
Looks genuine enough for me. ibid. painting repair man
I think you know what I have to say. ibid. gallery geezer to head porter