Picasso Painting That Cost S. I. Newhouse a MoMA Board Position Heads to Christie’s for $55 M.
Christie’s New York will auction 16 works from the collection of late publishing magnate S. I. Newhouse (died 2017) on May 18 at Rockefeller Center, with the group expected to total about $450 million. A highlight is Pablo Picasso’s 1913 Cubist painting Homme à la guitare, estimated at $35 million to $55 million, which Newhouse reportedly bought for about $10 million after MoMA sold it in 2000 to bolster its acquisition fund. Because MoMA policy barred board members from purchasing deaccessioned works, Newhouse resigned from the Museum of Modern Art board after acquiring the painting, according to reporting at the time. The work’s provenance includes sales from dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler to Gertrude Stein in 1913, then to MoMA’s Syndicate in 1968, to banker André Meyer, and later into MoMA’s collection, where it appeared in major Picasso exhibitions including a 1980 retrospective and the 1989 MoMA show “Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism.”
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This story was covered in Restitution Reckonings and Scandals Shaking the Art World