All’s fair in love and art!
While late billionaire Leonard Lauder’s Gustav Klimt sold for $236.4 million, and that famed banana artist Maurizio Cattelan’s golden toilet swirled up $12.1 million, at a Sotheby’s sale this week — another art lot was more quietly snapped up by TV tycoon Ryan Murphy.
A collector in the room at Sotheby’s New York headquarters for the sale tells us they spotted producer Murphy placing the winning bid on Simone Leigh’s “Sphinx,” splashing out $889,000 on the sculpture.
The auction took place after the sale of Lauder’s collection.
“Sphinx” is a 2021 work in bronze and platinum leaf.
The artist’s work has been shown at the Guggenheim and the Tate.
Leigh’s work “elaborates on Black feminist thought, an intellectual tradition which values and centers the experiences of Black women,” explained the auction house’s web site.
“Informed by a rigorous attention to a wide swath of historical periods, geographies, and artistic traditions of Africa and the African diaspora, Leigh often combines the female body with domestic vessels or architectural elements to point to unacknowledged acts of labor and care, particularly among and for Black women,” press materials added.
Murphy’s latest show, “All’s Fair,” a legal drama starring Kim Kardashian, has been panned by critics, not that he — or its many viewers — seem to mind.
Either way, it was big week at Sotheby’s at the auction house’s new Breuer Building location. The inaugural evening of Breuer sales reached $706 million, the highest ever for a single night.
Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” sold for $236.4 million, making it the second-most expensive painting ever sold at auction. The masterpiece was part of the blockbuster sale of the estate of cosmetics titan Lauder, who passed away in June.
The infamous gold toilet piece, titled “America” by Cattelan — also known for his duct tape and banana work called “Comedian” — sold to one bidder, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!
“This World Toilet Day, we’re flush with excitement! Ripley’s Believe It or Not! has purchased a solid gold toilet for $12.1 million!” the oddity museum revealed on Instagram.
Another version of the toilet was stolen by thieves from Blenheim Palace in England in 2019 and has never been found. But two bandits were found guilty of the heist in March.
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