An auction of 11 Picasso paintings and works at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas on Oct. 23, brought in more than $10-million.BRIDGET BENNET/Reuters
Eleven Picasso paintings and other works that helped turn Las Vegas into an unlikely destination for art aficionados were sold at auction on Saturday for more than US$100-million.
The Sotheby’s auction was held at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, where the works had been on display for years, and took place two days before the 140th birthday of the Spanish artist on Oct. 25.
Five of the paintings had hung on the walls of the Bellagio’s fine dining restaurant, Picasso. The restaurant will continue to display 12 other Picasso works.
The highest price was fetched by the 1938 painting Femme au beret rouge-orange of the artist’s lover and muse, Marie-Therese Walter, which sold for US$40.5-million, some US$10-million over the high presale estimate.
The large-scale portraits Homme et Enfant and Buste d’homme sold for US$24.4-million and US$9.5-million respectively, while smaller works on ceramic, such as Le Dejeuner Sur l’herbe which sold for US$2.1-million, went for three or four times their presale estimate.
The buyers’ names were not disclosed.
Saturday’s sale was part of a bid by casino and hotel group MGM Resorts to further diversify its vast collection to include more art from women, people of colour and emerging nations as well as from LGBTQ artists and artists with disabilities.
American museums and art galleries have been working to broaden their collections in the wake of the widespread cultural reckoning in 2020 over racism at all levels of U.S. society.
A 2019 Public Library of Science study of 18 leading U.S. museums found that 85 per cent of the artists on display are white and 87 per cent are men.
The MGM Resorts Fine Arts Collection boasts about 900 works by 200 artists, including modern pieces by Bob Dylan and David Hockney. It was started more than 20 years ago by Steve Wynn, former owner of the Bellagio and former chief executive of Wynn Resorts.
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