Artnet was quick to pick up on my Crystal Bridges acquisitions story today, but missed an obvious follow-up about Alice Walton‘s November shopping spree, which was hiding in plain sight on its own website.
It took Arkansas Times journalist Leslie Newell Peacock (whose company I enjoyed during my visit to the then in-construction Crystal Bridges Museum), to put two and two together, remembering today (after seeing my post) that the then unidentified buyer of the Johns “Flag” at Sotheby’s on Nov. 11 had been reported by Artnet to be the buyer of four more pieces in the same contemporary auction, including this:
Sold for $44.97 million
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
As Peacock remembered, Eileen Kinsella‘s post-sale report for Artnet (linked here in the top paragraph) mentioned that the same successful bidder (identified by the same paddle number) for whom Sotheby’s specialist Scott Nussbaum had won “Flag” also won the above $44.97-million Rothko, as well as these three works:
—Joseph Cornell, “Untitled (Palais de Cristal),” ca. 1953, $665,000
—Mark Tansey, “Landscape,” 1994, $3.75 million
—Louise Bourgeois, “Distant Figures,” 1971, $1.8 million
What we don’t yet know is whether Walton and/or Crystal Bridges also figured in Christie’s record-breaking contemporary sale the following night. Maybe Alice was feeling particularly generous at Sotheby’s, because Nov. 11 was Crystal Bridges’ third anniversary. Or could she have fallen for “The King,” who shot holes in his “in the region of $60 million” presale estimate at Christie’s?
Sold for $81.93 million
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
That’s idle speculation on my part. But it would be nice (and proper) if Crystal Bridges would drop its veil of secrecy and update its Recent Acquisitions website, so we could all stop guessing and know what it’s actually got.