The spring sales of modern and contemporary art often arrive in May with a steady drumroll of paintings whose estimates soar above $50 million — a sign of confidence in the industry’s roster of ultrawealthy collectors who trade them like financial assets. Now that drumroll sounds like rain’s pitter-patter as …
When art works fetch spectacular auction prices, like the record $450.3 million for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” in 2017, the world’s focus turns for a moment to the arcane goings-on of the international art trade. But with the market in a downturn for the last two years, there have …
He did it all quietly. “Nothing about him said, ‘Look at me,’” said Candace Beinecke, president of Aso O. Tavitian’s foundation. “Very few people outside the art world knew about him,” confided Olivier Meslay, the director of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. When it was announced last month …