How 'bout a Miami winter?

I know it seems like a long time until December hits us, but it's not too early to start thinking about booking rooms and flights for this December in Miami.

Along with Art Basel Miami - the most famous, there will a slew of other fairs (and I'm just touching the tip of the iceberg):

Art-Miami:
The Miami Midtown Arts District
Midtown Blvd (NE 1st Avenue) between NE 32nd & NE 31st Street
Miami, FL 33137

Aqua Art Miami:
AquaHotel in South Beach, near Art Basel Miami Beach
and Aqua Wynwood in the heart of Miami's gallery district

Red Dot Art Fair
Wynwood Art District Art Midtown,
corner of 36th Street and NE 1st Avenue/Midtown Blvd ,
Miami, Florida 33127, U.S.A.

(image - Josef Albers, Homage to the Square: In Late Red, 1959.

This week I thought I would focus on an extensive corporate art collection - that of JPMorgan Chase.

The JPMorgan Chase Art Collection began in 1959 when David Rockefeller, then president of The Chase Manhattan Bank, established the firm’s art program and took the lead in corporate art collecting.

By using a programmatic approach to acquisitions, this collection became a model for other companies worldwide.

In 1960, under Rockefeller’s leadership, an illustrious group of art experts were invited to join an advisory committee to guide the program’s acquisition strategy and set the standard for corporate art practices and administration.

Joining Rockefeller on the Art Committee were renowned museum directors and curators, including Alfred Barr and Dorothy Miller (The Museum of Modern Art); James Johnson Sweeney (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum); Robert Hale (The Metropolitan Museum of Art); Perry Rathbone (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) and Gordon Bunshaft (SOM).

With a mandate for high quality and originality, the committee established the pattern that the firm follows to this day. The JPMorgan Chase Art Collection is now one of the oldest and largest corporate collections in the world, focusing on modern and contemporary painting, sculpture, works on paper and photography. The core collection is enhanced by a diverse range of objects from every country in which JPMorgan does business, offering a unique perspective on the firm’s culture.

Auction buzz

The art world is buzzing with news from the auctioneers. Both Sotheby's and Christie's held their spring Post-War and Contemporary Auctions this week, and things went a little bit better for Christie's.

From the New York Times: (read full article)

One night collectors seemed resistant to part with their cash; the next evening they were clamoring to bid. Such was the auction whiplash that occurred over a 24-hour period. Unlike Sotheby’s sale on Tuesday, where bidding was thin and buyers reluctant, Christie’s auction of postwar and contemporary art on Wednesday showed a different face altogether. It was a buoyant hour and a half during which record prices were set for recognized artists like David Hockney.

The sale totaled $93.7 million, just under its high $104.5 million estimate. Of the 54 works up for sale, only 5 failed to find buyers.


(image - David Hockney's Beverly Hills Housewife brought in $7.9 million for Christie's)