Nude, Green Leaves and Bust

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust

French: Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur
Artist	Pablo Picasso
Year	1932 (1932)
Type	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	162 cm × 130 cm (64 in × 51 in)
Location	Private collection

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (French: Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur) is a 1932 painting by Pablo Picasso, featuring his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter.

The painting was in the personal collection of Los Angeles art collectors Sidney and Frances Brody for nearly six decades. It sold at auction for US$106.5 million, a world record price.

It is currently on show at Tate Modern in London, alongside other Picasso paintings from the gallery's own collection.

Background

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust is one of a series of portraits that Picasso painted of his mistress and muse Marie-Thérèse Walter from 1932. The vibrant blue and lilac canvas is more than five feet tall. It was bought by the Brodys in 1951 from Picasso's dealer and was publicly exhibited only once, in 1961, to commemorate Picasso's 80th birthday.^[1][2]

Auction

Frances Brody died in November 2009. On May 4, 2010, the painting was sold at Christies in New York City. Christie's won the rights to auction the collection against London-based Sotheby's. The collection as a whole was valued at over US$150 million, while the work was originally expected to earn $80 million at auction.^[3]

There were eight bidders at the auction house, while the winning bid was taken via telephone for $95 million.^[2] Including the buyer's premium, the price reached US$106.5 million.^[4] When inflation is ignored, the painting broke the record price for an art work sold at auction. The previous auction record was set in February 2010 by Alberto Giacometti's L'Homme qui marche I, which sold for $104.3 million.

The most expensive work of art sold at a public auction remains Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet, which was bought in May 1990 for $82.5 million (approx. $138.4 million in CPI-adjusted 2010 US dollars), while Jackson Pollock's No. 5, 1948, which was privately sold for $140 million in 2006 (approx. $151 million in 2010 dollars), remains the most expensive work of art sold overall.

See also

• List of most expensive paintings

Notes

1. ^ BBC News, May 5, 2010; AFP wire story, May 3, 2010.
2. ^ ^{a b} The Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2010.
   ^a "[The painting] come[s] from the estate of Frances Brody, a Los Angeles-based collector who filled her mid-century Modernist home with masterworks that she rarely lent to museums or showed to the public. She and her late husband, Sidney Brody, bought the painting in 1951 and only exhibited it once in the U.S., in 1961, to commemorate the artist's 80th birthday."
   ^b "In a dogged contest at the auction house's Rockefeller Center salesroom, the bidding for Picasso's 'Nude' began at $58 million and shot up quickly, with eight bidders competing for the jewel-toned, 5-by-4-foot painting. Christie's specialist Nicholas Hall, who often advises collectors of Old Master paintings, fielded the winning bid from the unknown buyer over a telephone."
3. ^ The New York Times, March 9, 2010.
4. ^ The New York Times, May 6, 2010.

References

• "Picasso painting fetches record $106m at auction". BBC News. 2010-05-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8661338.stm. Retrieved 2010-05-05. 
• Cotter, Holland (2010-05-06). "Another auction, another trophy". The New York Times: p. C1. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/arts/06cotter.html. Retrieved 2010-06-11. 
• Crow, Kelly (2010-05-05). "Picasso sets auction record; Portrait of mistress sells for $106.5 million, providing opening spark to season". The Wall Street Journal: p. A3. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703866704575224873880379734.html. Retrieved 2010-06-11. 
• Messana, Paola (2010-05-03). "NY auctions to signal return of good times: art dealers". Agence France-Presse. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j8XOW9zyPng7qiHLiZtHqPMW9ugw. Retrieved 2010-06-11. 
• Vogel, Carol (2010-03-09). "Christie's wins bid to auction $150 Million Brody Collection". The New York Times: p. C3. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/arts/design/10auction.html. Retrieved 2010-05-05.