Auction in New York
Picasso paintings sold at auction for almost $140 million – only one of his works was more expensive
Pablo Picasso’s painting “Femme à la montre” fetched almost $140 million at auction
© Fatih Aktas/ / Picture Alliance
In 1932, Spanish artist Pablo Picasso painted his lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter. After hanging above an art collector’s fireplace for many years, the portrait was now auctioned off in New York.
“Femme à la montre” shows Picasso’s lover
The Picasso painting “Femme à la montre”, a portrait of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter, which is now being auctioned and was created in 1932, was bought by the collector Landau in 1968 and then hung above the fireplace in her New York apartment for many years, Sotheby’s said . Who bought it was not initially announced. Along with the Picasso, around 120 other works are to be auctioned at the two-day auction – before the traditional autumn auction next week.
At the end of the 1960s, Landau received a large insurance sum after jewelry was stolen and began buying art. Over the years she built up one of the world’s most important collections of modern art, with works by, among others, Georgia O’Keeffe, Agnes Martin, Keith Haring, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Robert Mapplethorpe. For a time, Landau also ran a museum in the New York borough of Queens. She died in March at the age of 102.