THREE KLIMT MASTERPIECES HEADLINE $400 MILLION SOTHEBY’S SALE FROM COLLECTOR LEONARD LAUDER
The inaugural auction at the new Sotheby’s global headquarters in New York’s Breuer Building will be the sale of Leonard A. Lauder’s collection. Highlights of the $400 million auction include three works by Gustav Klimt that have never been seen at auction before. Lauder was a businessman known for his position as chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder Companies, starting his collection in 1966 with the acquisition of a Kurt Schwitters collage. He has since become widely recognised as one of the most influential American art collectors of his generation. Helena Newman, chairman of Impressionist & Modern art worldwide at Sotheby’s has said in a statement, “To have not just one but three rare, superb museum-quality masterpieces by Klimt, none of which has previously been offered on the open market, coming up for sale together, represents a truly unique moment. The Portrait of Elizabeth Lederer epitomizes the aesthetic of Vienna’s Golden Age in which youth, beauty, colour, and ornament are fused into a stunning Modernist portrait, whilst the two exquisite square format landscapes, Blumenwiese (1908) and ‘Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee (1916) attest to Klimt’s liberation from the traditional conventions of painting.” Leading the sale is Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914-16), which holds an estimate of $150 million and is one of only two full-length portraits from this period to still be in private collections. The portrait depicts the daughter of August and Serena Lederer, patrons of Klimt, and if sold for its estimate will break Klimt’s current record at auction. The other two works that will be heading to the auction are Blumenwiese (1908) and Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee (1916). Blumenwiese presents a meadow of wildflowers and is estimated at $80 million, while Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee holds an estimate of $70 million and is believed to be Klimt’s final landscape.
Gustav Klimt, Porträt der Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer), 1914–16.
EMI AVORA AWARDED THE OVERSEAS WOMEN IN ART PRIZE
Singapore based artist Emi Avora has been announced as the winner of the Women in Art Prize in the Overseas Artist category. The recipients of the prize were announced at a ceremony in London on Wednesday night, with awards across six categories. The Women in Art Prize aims to champion women artists across the globe, celebrating their innovation and contributions to the art world. The initiative hopes to not only amplify the voices of existing artists, but to inspire future generations of women artists by championing artistic excellence and advocating for gender equity. Across her practice, Avora examines themes of ‘identity’ and ‘place,’ drawing from her own experience living across the globe, from her childhood in Greece to her current life in Singapore. Avora’s dreamscapes blend the historical with the contemporary, blurring the boundaries between reality and the imagined.
EDWARD BURTYNSKY: SHIFTING TOPOGRAPHY
Canadian artist and photographer Edward Burtynsky opens his first major solo exhibition in Turkey at Borusan Contemporary, presenting works from the past thirty years. Edward Burtynsky: Shifting Topography, curated by Marcus Schubert, particularly focuses on the subject of erosion across the Turkish landscape. The exhibition marks the culmination of a long-term collaboration between Burtynsky and the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection. The first section of the exhibition, titled Erosian, was commissioned by the museum and debuts a number of new works alongside others that have never been shown. The images capture the 3,000km expedition that Burtynsky took across central Anatolia and the Mediterranean, highlighting both environmental degradation and the complexity of remediation efforts. This exploration is presented alongside other bodies of work from Burtynsky’s extensive career, including African Studies, Nature, Quarries, Berezniki Mine, and Refineries. Capturing the Sublime through his expansive aerial images, Burtynsky’s oeuvre invokes sentiments of both awe and warning. Shifting Topography tackles difficult questions of the fragility of the earth and how sustainable balance might be maintained for future generations.
Edward Burtynsky, Tailings Pond #2, Wesselton Diamond Mine, Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, 2018
ANCIENT PHARAOH’S GOLD BRACELET STOLEN FROM EGYPTIAN MUSEUM
A 3,000-year-old gold and lapis bracelet has been declared missing from the restoration laboratory at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The bracelet was once owned by Pharaoh Amenemope, who ruled from 993 to 984 B.C.E. during the Third Intermediate Period. Following its restoration, the artefact was set to be loaned to the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome for the Treasures of the Pharaohs exhibition, set to open on 24 October. Since the announcement of its missing status, authorities have formed a committee to run inventory on all the artefacts currently being held at the restoration lab. Government concerns surround the possibility that the bracelet has already been smuggled out of the country, a proven concern with Egyptian antiquities. Christos Tsirogiannis, a forensic archaeologist based at Cambridge University, has said that if this was the case, the bracelet “how up sooner or later either on an online platform or at a dealer’s gallery or auction house,” with a falsified provenance, or be sold quietly into a private collection. The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced that it had “taken immediate legal and administrative measures regarding the disappearance of a bracelet.”
A similar gold and lapis lazuli bracelet recently went missing from the restoration lab at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
SAMIA HALABY RECEIVES MUNCH AWARD FOR ARTISTIC FREEDOM
Samia Halaby, a Palestinian artist, educator and activist, has received this year’s Munch Award, celebrating artistic freedom. The award is presented by Munch, a museum in Oslo dedicated to the work of Edvard Munch, and recognises the courage and integrity of artists in the face of political and societal pressure. On October 22, there will be an official ceremony in Paris, followed by a separate ceremony October 24 at Munch in Oslo. Last year, Rosana Paulino was announced as the inaugural recipient for her commitment to examining themes of violence regarding race and gender. This year’s winner Samia Halaby was born in Jerusalem in 1936 and is known not only for her artistic practice, but for her activism work that raise awareness about the plight of Palestine and injustices regarding race, class, and gender. The jury have shared in a statement, “The Munch Award Jury would like to honour Halaby for her visionary and enduring artistic practice. She was at the forefront of the development of digital art through her experiments with early computer coding and has been exploring abstraction in its different forms for over sixty years. Her paintings both expand geometric traditions from the Islamic context and introduce contributions from around the world to North Atlantic regional modernism.”
Samia Halaby
OLAFUR ELIASSON’S NEXT PROJECT RAISES ALARM OVER THE DECLINE OF UTAH’S GREAT SALT LAKE
The Icelandic Danish artist Olafur Eliasson is currently working on his first public commission in the Intermountain West, inspired by the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The project aims to highlight the declining water levels and ecological crisis that the lake is currently facing, with water levels reaching an all-time low in 2022. The installation, the largest of its kind, is set to debut in the spring of 2026 in a public park in Salt Lake City. Titled A symphony of disappearing sounds for the Great Salt Lake, the work will combine field recordings of lake’s wildlife with a changing light projection. Eliasson shared with The Art Newspaper, “When I first encountered the Great Salt Lake and was introduced to the complex issues that are affecting the lake, I asked myself what art could contribute to the discussion. The lake is both deeply local—intertwined as it is in the lives of nearby farms and communities—and part of vast, planetary systems of water flows and animal migration. My artistic aim is to bring these scales together, to invite people to experience the lake not only at the human level but also through a broader perspective.” The project is part of a greater movement, Wake the Great Salt Lake, that commissions artists to create temporary public works that shine a spotlight on the crises that the Great Salt Lake is current experiencing. The initiative also emphasises the economic importance of the lake, as noted by Felicia Baca, the executive director of the Salt Lake City Arts Council, “Environmental issues like the decline of the Great Salt Lake don’t occur in a vacuum—they are deeply connected to global systems and create ripple effects that extend far beyond our region.”
Olafur Eliasson, Your psychoacoustic light ensemble, 2024
