Feuding couple’s art trove breaks auction record
Modern masterpieces fetch almost a billion dollars as they finally go under the hammer after divorce row
AN art collection has become the most expensive ever sold at auction, all because two New York divorcees failed to agree on how much it was worth.
The historic sale of modern masterpieces from Mark Rothko to Andy Warhol came after a long, bitter and costly divorce between billionaire real estate developer Harry Macklowe and his exwife Linda Burg, a former art critic and museum trustee.
Unable to agree on the price of their huge trove of art, a judge ruled that selling the works was the best way to provide them with enough “cash to enable them each to enjoy their lifestyles”.
That wish was surely granted on Monday night when Sotheby’s sold the final pieces for $246.1 million (£200.6million). Together with the first sale in November, the total value of the art comes to $922.2 million.
Sotheby’s described the 65 works as the “most significant collection of modern and contemporary art to ever appear on the market”.
The previous record was held by the Rockefeller collection, which sold for $835.1million in 2018.
In court, the pair, who had been married for 59 years, fought over every asset. Ms Burg was granted silver valued at $409,500, books worth $85,500, and jewellery worth $3.84million. Her ex-husband got cars worth $385,000 and the former couple’s yacht Unfurled, worth $23.5 million. But the lion’s share
‘It is the most significant collection of modern and contemporary art to ever appear on the market’
of their wealth was tied down in art. The sale of the last 30 pieces included seminal works by Rothko, Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Willem de Kooning.
The former couple, who often disagreed in public like “in an Edward Albee play”, faced a major obstacle in court because Mr Macklowe wanted to sell the art while Ms Burg wanted to keep it.
The case made front-page news when Mr Macklowe posted a huge billboard poster of himself and his new, younger wife on the exterior of a building he owned on Park Avenue.
Legal proceedings became complicated when experts assigned different values to the same art. For example, a Giacometti sculpture was estimated at $35million by Ms Burg’s expert, and $65million by Mr Macklowe’s, who generally made higher valuations as their client was more interested in selling.
Unable to agree, Justice Laura Drager, ruled that Ms Burg could keep some of the art and give Mr Macklowe half its value in cash, but that the rest should be sold as only the market could determine its true worth. “In addition”, she added, “the sale will provide each party with needed cash to enable them each to enjoy their lifestyles.”
The most expensive artwork auctioned on Monday was Rothko’s Untitled (1960), which had never been displayed in public before the sale. It fetched $48million. One of Warhol’s final works, a self-portrait completed just months before his death in 1987, sold for $18.7million. Roy Lichtenstein’s Mirror #9 (1970) garnered the most spirited action, selling after more than eight minutes for $6.1million with fees, four times the presale estimate.
After the auction, Mr Macklowe said: “I’m thrilled. Everybody endorsing the choices we made over the last 65 years was the greatest payback.”