THE audience at Christie’s in New York gasped and then clapped as a mystery telephone bidder paid £116million for a Picasso oil painting of partly clothed courtesans. The purchaser, who set a world record price, was immediately reported to be Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the billionaire former Qatari prime minister who is on a permanent buying spree around the world.
Art market expert Georgina Adam told Orchard Times: “The auction of the Picasso took over 11 minutes, which in saleroom terms is an eternity – generally each lot is hammered down in just one or two minutes. However the battle for the painting was not in the room, but on the telephones, with two Christie’s staffers relaying bids from their mysterious clients from the $140m mark upwards. “
Sheikh Hamad, 63, who was educated at the British military academy Sandhurst has a vast property portfolio in the UK, Manhattan and elsewhere. If he is the purchaser it is just as well he has homes abroad because the nudity in the painting would present grave problems in his home country where it would breach strict decency laws. It could not certainly be exhibited.
In a move that has been blasted by art critics, Fox News decided to blur out the nude breasts and nipples of the tumbling ladies as it broadcast a live report of the sale. The censorship led to a cascade of criticism on Twitter, excoriating Fox for pandering to Conservative American viewers. That seems unlikely somehow, the Picasso image is not remotely pornographic or offensive, so was Fox trying to placate the many oil rich Arabs among the bidders? If this is the case, it brings a new and rather sinister level to censorship.
The Cubist style work is part of a series created in 1954-55 created as a tribute to Picasso’s friend Henri Matisse. Is it strange, given the sensibilities of Muslims regarding the naked female (and male) body, that this painting was so intensely fought over in the saleroom? Not really. It is likely to disappear from sight altogether, either into one of the mansions owned by Sheikh Hamad in London or Manhattan, if indeed he is the buyer, or even into a vault. Art is not to be looked at any more, it is an investment.
“Think of the Picasso as a colourful $179million banknote” says Godfrey Barker of the Sunday Times. “What the super rich focus on when bidding at Sotheby’s or Christie’s is not the painting but the profit.”