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Armory Week’s Lackluster Commerce Wasn’t Happy News for the Art Market. But the Real Test Is Yet to Come
So how was business at Armory Week in New York, really? As the art world rushes from event to event, driven by a mix of FOMO and transactional fervor, it can be hard to discern what’s actually happening on the ground in real time. The spin is thick. The stakes are high. And the next […]
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In a Jittery Market, a Glut of Art Fairs Is Again Putting Galleries Through the Wringer—With No End in Sight
The back-to-school festivities known as Armory Week pushed the new art season into high gear in New York this week amid jitters over the market correction and uncertainty about the impact of consolidation in the trade-show industry. It’s telling that much of the chatter in the aisles at the behemoth Javits Center, where the Armory […]
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Billionaire Financier Thomas H. Lee’s Heirs Are Selling His Art Privately After His Suicide. Public Filings Show He Leveraged the Heck Out of It, Too
Deaths of key collectors are propelling scores of blue-chip art to the market. The Art Detective hears that the $500 million Emily Fisher Landau estate, so far the biggest prize of the upcoming season, will go to Sotheby’s for an auction led by Pablo Picasso’s large-scale 1932 portrait of Marie-Therese Walter. (A Christie’s representative […]
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Once Celebrated and Then Forgotten, the French Artist Marie Laurencin Is About to Step Into the Limelight Again, Three Decades After Her Death
The details of Marie Laurencin’s life are so incredible that her story sounds like a movie in the making. In fact, it’s shocking to me that the French artist (1883-1956) doesn’t have better name recognition. What didn’t she do? In her 20s, she mingled with Pablo Picasso and his Cubist circle in Paris, attending Gertrude […]
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He Was the Legendary Impresario Who Put Jean-Michel Basquiat on the Map. But Now Former Friends Reveal Another, Darker Side of Diego Cortez
When Diego Cortez died in the summer of 2021, the art world choked up. An artist, curator, adviser, and co-founder of the legendary Mudd Club in Tribeca, he had been a ubiquitous presence in downtown New York art and music circles since the 1970s. Friends described him as “a brilliant visionary,” a “great impresario,” “a […]