Lavish Sale
Sotheby’s now has to sell at least $123 million of art to break even on the guarantee, not counting the expenses associated with the lavish auction. To promote the sale, Sotheby’s sent the highlights to Hong Kong and London, organized dinners for clients and consigners and designed special catalogs.
Two red carpets outside Sotheby’s Upper East Side headquarters greeted visitors including filmmaker Woody Allen, fashion designer Valentino Garavani and Lightyear Capital Chairman Donald Marron. Champagne and blinis with black caviar were served to guests while staffers were decked out in tuxedos and cocktail dresses. Before the auction, the lights were dimmed and a video of the sale’s highlights was played on two large screens to a loud soundtrack.
“They were in a tough spot,” said Janis Gardner Cecil, director at Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art gallery in Manhattan. “They had to have the Taubman sale stay here. In order to do it, they had to shoot for the moon.”
High Estimates
Dealers said the estimates were too high for the quality of the material and as a result many works fell short of their low presale estimates.
“I don’t think the world is convinced this was a legendary collection,” said David Nash, co-owner of Mitchell-Innes & Nash gallery in New York. “It was a nice collection but it’s not legendary.”
Taubman, a self-made billionaire who made his fortune in shopping malls, bought Sotheby’s in 1983 and took it public several years later. He built his art collection over more than five decades. In 2001 Taubman was found guilty of collaborating with Christie’s to fix fees, violating antitrust laws and cheating customers of about $100 million. He spent 10 months in prison but maintained he broke no laws and took an unfair fall.
“The core question is: can they market this group of works based on the provenance?" said Andrew Terner, a private art dealer in New York. “Can they build the patina on the Taubman name?”
Some Casualties