JFK Canvas Bought for $16,900 Set to Sell For $50 Million
A major upcoming auction of a painting by Robert Rauschenberg is set to "prime the market" for the late artist, according to a new Bloomberg report. And the early signs of what his work will fetch look to be optimistic, to put it lightly. The artist's 1964 work "Buffalo II" is set to be auctioned off by Christie's on May 15 and is estimated to be offered for $50 million. That's triple the artist's auction record and 300,000% more than what the original buyers of the work paid.
The canvas is in the style of a collage and depicts president John F. Kennedy. The canvas was created shortly after the President's assassination and was purchased from art dealer Leo Castelli, who represented Rauschenberg at the time. The upcoming sale of the piece will likely "reset" the artist's market, breaking his $18.6 million auction record and the records of other contemporary artists like Jasper Johns, whose "Flag" sold in 2014 for $36 million. Sara Friedlander, Christie’s international director and head of its postwar and contemporary art department in New York told Bloomberg: “Everyone has been waiting for this painting. It’s the very best of the silkscreen paintings that’s left in private hands.’’ The canvas is part of a collection owned by Robert and Beatrice “Buddy” Mayer, who was an heiress to the Sara Lee fortune. In total, Christie's is set to offer more than $125 million of Mayer's works.
This collection includes Roy Lichtenstein’s $30 million 1962 “Kiss III," and other Impressionist and modern art, in addition to Chinese ceramics and Latin American paintings. Mayer was a Montreal native, art patron and an activist who was a founding member of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. “It was a very exciting, politically charged time. And that’s the art they wanted to buy,” Friedlander said of its owners.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-01/jfk-canvas-bought-16900-set-sell-50-million