Sotheby’s London has issued art and jewelry investor Olyvia Kwok with a £3 million High Court writ for purchasing two artworks on behalf of a client who was unable to pay for them, the Telegraph has reported. Kwok successfully bid £2.49 million for “Water-Worshipper” by Jean-Michel Basquiat and £386,500 for “Idilli” by Cy Twombly at the Contemporary Art Evening Auction back in February. At the time, Kwok described the Basquiat purchase as “a bargain,” adding, “I believe that by the end of the year it will be in a different league. In 18 months we are looking to double what we paid.
Since then, Kwok has claimed that she was acting on behalf of a European client based in Hong Kong, who later failed to produce the funds. She was introduced to the client through a mutual friend. “In ten years of dealings in the business I have never found my trust has been breached in this way,” she said. Sotheby’s filed a High Court writ demanding the £2,974,400 owed, plus interest of £43,964.08. It has also retained the works. However, a spokesperson for the auction house confirmed that while the writ has been issued, the parties involved are “in the process of resolving the matter.”
“We’ve now been paid the majority of the proceeds, and payment in full is in the process of being amicably resolved,” the spokesperson said.
Kwok became an art dealer at the age of 22, with guidance from her godfather Conor Mahony — a former vice-president of the Chinese department at Sotheby’s. She went on to purchase artworks for a private bank in Geneva as part of its $50 million hedge fund. She opened her own gallery in London in 2005, but moved into art investing in 2009 after prices across the art market fell.
A public square in Paris’s 13th arrondissement will be named after Jean-Michel Basquiat after the French capital’s City Council approved a proposal from Jérôme Coumet, the 13th arrondissement’s mayor.
“Basquiat is one of the biggest contemporary artists,” Coumet told Le Figaro. “He defended the cause of African-Americans in the US, and was also a lover of France. He was the artist who blazed the trail for street art, and art in public space.”
The 13th arrondissement has become a destination for its wealth of street art—including the recently demolished Tour Paris 13—and already features several streets named after artists, like the Rue Paul Klee and Rue Marcel Duchamp.
“The 13th already has a number of streets with the names of artists and intellectuals,” Coumet said. “Basquiat has his place among them.”
The future Place Jean-Michel Basquiat is currently under construction, and will be christened with its new name at an as-yet unspecified date.
Also approved in the same session of the council of the 13th arrondissement on June 10: Rue Jacques Lacan.
Last fall, Banksy took to New York for his “Better Out Than In” residency. One of his projects in the series saw Banksy hire a man to sell his art pieces in Central Park. Although the canvases were on sale for $60 USD a piece, only a few were sold with visitors clueless that the art belonged to the acclaimed street artist. Now, two of the stenciled pieces, “Kids on Guns” and “Winnie the Pooh” (seen above) are heading up for auction at British auctioneers Bonhams. Sizing out to 45.5 x 45.5 cm each, the auction house estimates the artworks to worth $51,000 to $85,000 USD and $85,000 and $12,000 USD respectively. The auction will take place on July 2 in London
From Hollywood to the Art World, the New Celebrity Collectors
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We don’t have to tell you that art collecting is an expensive hobby. Who has the cash to drop $1 million or more on a single work because of a whim (or perhaps because another collector threatens to snap it up if you don’t)? Well, celebrities, that’s who. So we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of some of the most famous people in the collecting game and what they’re buying.
Leonardo DiCaprio at The Brant Foundation.
Photo: Owen Hoffmann/PatrickMcMullan.com
1. Leonardo DiCaprio
Over the past couple of years, DiCaprio has been spotted strolling the aisles at Art Basel Miami, hiding behind sunglasses in Chelsea, attending the opening of an Andy Warhol show at the Brant Foundation, and turning up at auctions dressed in jeans and a baseball cap pulled down low—particularly for mid-auction exits when he’s clearly trying to avoid being noticed. In 2013,he orchestrated a charity auction at Christie’s entitled “The 11th Hour Sale,” to benefit environmental causes. His own Andreas Gursky satellite image of Earth, Ocean V, was auctioned. His current collection reportedly includes work by Oscar Murillo and Salvador Dalí.
4. Brad Pitt
Pitt has been a fixture in the art world since appearing at Art Basel in 2009 alongside collectors Eli and Edythe Broad, where he purchased a Neo Rauch painting for $1 million (the Broads told him that if he didn’t buy it, they would). Also an avid collector of Art Deco furniture, in 2012, he collaborated with luxury furniture maker Frank Pollaro to produce a dozen limited-edition pieces. Additionally, as a major donor to to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, he angled for a position on their board during the management shakeup in 2013. Unfortunately, he was rebuffed due to his lack of a college degree. As a museum insider put it, “just because he can buy art does not mean he can curate it”. In addition, some reports saythat wife Angelina Jolie is less than thrilled about Brad dropping so much cash on art, feeling that instead he should donate more money to charity. We’ll be interested to see what the future has in store for this celebrity collector – apparently he was recently spotted perusing some photos at Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles.
Mary-Kate Olsen at last year’s Costume Institute Gala.
Photo: Nicholas Hunt/PatrickMcMullan.com
6. Madonna
Madonna’s art collection is almost as legendary as the superstar herself, reportedly worth over $100 million, and including some of big-time blue chip names: Picasso, Hopper, Kahlo, Leger, Dali, Man Ray, and Hirst. Madonna is also a huge fan of Tamara de Lempicka, a Polish Art Deco painter known for her glamorous lifestyle, whose work Madonna perhaps fittingly helped bring back into the limelight. Unlike many other celebrity collectors, Madonna employed an art adviser, Darlene Lutz, until they became embroiled in a lawsuit over a painting in 2005. No word on whether or not she ever replaced the consultant, but in recent years, she has taken to making visual art herself. Along with fashion photographer Steven Klein, Madge created Secretprojectrevolution, a 17-minute projection that opened at Gagosian Gallery in 2013. Apparently, Madonna has a long history with Gagosian himself, dating back to the 1980′s, when Madonna briefly dated Jean Michel Basquiat, who was represented by the gallery.
7. David and Victoria Beckham
Though not technically “Hollywood”, this celebrity couple has amassed an impressive art collection, which features Damien Hirst, Sam Taylor Wood, Tracey Emin, Banksy, and Jake and Dinos Chapman, much of which was purchased from London’s White Cube Gallery. Victoria reportedly wishes to be “a mover and shaker in more upmarket circles nowadays and likes being a ‘collector’…She is even in talks with a museum to showcase some of their pieces.” Granted, these “talks” reportedly took place in 2010, but who knows? It could still happen. More recently,David has expressed an interest in taking up street art himself, hoping to portray his wife in aBanksy-inspired painting.
Sofia Coppola at the 2013 Whitney Gala.
Photo: Nicholas Hunt / PatrickMcMullan.com
9. Neil Patrick Harris
Unlike many stars who seem bent on acquiring Warhols and Banksys, the How I Met Your Motherstar prefers to focus his attention on “contemporary, medium-size sort of up and comers,” including Ahmed Alsoudani, Annie Lapin, and more under-the-radar names such as David Wojnarowicz. A collector since the early 2000′s, his first purchase was a Robert Longo, bought at the Margo Leavin Gallery. Harris’s collection also includes Tony Payne, Andrew Sendor andDarina Karpov, and apparently has gotten so large that he and his husband, David Burtka, are running out of places to hang it.
Swizz Beatz at a 2013 KAWS opening at Mary Boone Gallery.
Photo: Clint Spaulding/PatrickMcMullan.com
10. Swizz Beatz
Rapper Swizz Beatz (real name Kasseem Dean) is dedicated to living the #ArtLife, and while we’re not entirely sure what that means, we’re impressed with his collection, which boasts pieces by Basquiat, Swoon, Ernie Barnes, KAWS, Takashi Murakami, and Cecily Brown. It was his interest in Basquiat that inspired him to start looking at and collecting art. He told Artspace that he approached high-profile dealers like Enrico Navarro, Jeffrey Deitch, and Tony Shafrazi about buying artworks for his home and “Basquiat’s name just kept coming up in conversation, so I started doing my homework and saw that the lines with me and him were running parallel.” He has even taken inspiration from Basquiat for his own studio practice, which is supported by enthusiastic collector Jay Z.
