The Menil Collection in Texas is attempting to save a painting by Pablo Picasso that was vandalized recently with spray paint. The incident, which was captured on video and posted to YouTube, involved a man using black spray paint to deface Picasso's 1932 "Woman in Red Armchair."
Soon after the incident, the Houston museum rushed the painting to its conservation lab where experts are attempting to save it, according to the Houston Chronicle. The vandal stenciled an image of a bull and the word "Conquista" on the painting.
The museum told the Associated Press that its chief conservator has been working on the painting since it was damaged on Wednesday. Police in Houston are investigating the incident, according to the AP.
CNN quoted a Menil Collection spokeswoman saying that "the prognosis is excellent" for the painting.
A YouTube video (warning: adult language) showing the act of vandalism lasts about 25 seconds and shows a figure dressed in dark clothes spray-painting the Picasso work and then walking away.
The Menil is one of the top art museums in the country and offers free admission to all visitors.
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Source: www.latimes.com
Painting of Picasso's pregnant lover sells for $13m - ninemsn
Pablo Picasso's 'Femme assise', which depicts the Spanish artist's lover Francoise Gilot while heavily pregnant with their daughter Paloma, sold for over $13 million at a London auction on Wednesday.
The Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale at Christie's realised 92,583,550 GBP ($145,541,340) in total with the 1949 Picasso work topping the public lots after going under the hammer for the equivalent of $13,176,621.
Gilot was aged 21 when she met Picasso, then 61, in a restaurant in the spring of 1943.
The couple never married but had two children together. Their son, Claude, was born in 1947 while Paloma was born in 1949.
The evening's most anticipated work, Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 1888 'Baigneuse', was sold privately before the auction.
'Les jours gigantesques' by Rene Magritte smashed pre-sale expectations after selling for $11,106,886, the second highest price for the artist at auction.
"There were particularly notable prices for Surrealist works, reflecting the current fervour for this field," Christie's International Director Jay Vincze said.
"These were led by Magritte's 'Les jours gigantesques' which sparked a fierce battle between 10 bidders and which sold for almost five times its high estimate," he added.
There were also artist records set for Italian painter and printmaker Giorgio Morandi and German painter Kurt Schwitters.
Source: finance.ninemsn.com.au
Joan Miro painting smashes auction record - BBC News
Joan Miro's 1927 work Peinture (Etoile Bleue) has sold for more than £23.5 million in London, setting a new auction record for the Spanish painter.
An anonymous telephone bidder saw off three rivals at the Sotheby's sale.
The abstract work has tripled in price since it was last sold in 2007 and fetched the highest price reached at a London auction so far this year.
The previous auction record for a Miro was £16.8m, set when his 1925 work Painting-Poem sold in February.
Peinture (Etoile Bleue) - which translates as Painting (Blue Star) - hails from Miro's 'dream paintings' cycle and had been expected to fetch no more than £15m.
According to Sotheby's Helena Newman, the high figure reflected the current "unprecedented demand" for the best of 20th Century art.
The second highest price at Tuesday's event was fetched by Pablo Picasso's Homme Assis, which sold for £6.2m.
A Henry Moore sculpture, Mother and Child With Apple, was one of the night's other star performers, raising well above its pre-sale forecast of £3.7m.
The auction was the first in a busy week for fine art sales in London, which continues on Wednesday at Christie's.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
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