It is a time of great records. Record heat. Off-the-chart floods. Unprecedented madness from a house in Washington. Eye-watering prices for an artwork by a woman, and for one by king of kitsch Vladimir Tretchikoff.
First up, South Africa-born artist Marlene Dumas, whose Miss January has just sold at Christie’s in New York for $13.6m. It was the highest amount paid for a painting by a living female artist since someone parted with $12.4m for Jenny Saville’s Propped in 2018.
Closer to home, at auctioneer Strauss & Co, the gavel fell last month at a heart-stopping R31.1m for Tretchikoff’s Lady from the Orient.
Both paintings were bought by anonymous phone-in bidders. The way Strauss tells it, there was a “dramatic flurry” of bids for the Tretchikoff with the remote collector having the art world version of a bar fight with a “determined in-room contender”.
Usually, in this age of conspicuous consumption, very rich people aren’t much afraid of grinding their wealth in the world’s grubby face. Just look the Men With Yachts: Bezos, Spielberg, Geffen, Allen et al, whose vessels are so big some of them need their own support boats.
The paintings, though, have slipped away quietly to unknown homes. It will surely be difficult for whoever bought Miss January, who’s nearly 3m tall, wearing one pink sock and otherwise naked from the waist down, to squirrel her away in a study at the back of the house.
And it could be that whoever bought the Tretchikoff wants a quiet way to move a lot of money overseas. Which we will only discover if — when? — she rocks up for sale in some faraway land.
Meanwhile, hold on to your authorised prints of the Oriental lady (real name Valerie Howe, from Cape Town). Sure, they’re worth only R2,500 now, but you never know, for these are the days of miracles and wonders.
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