Visual Arts

For the second time in three days, a Picasso owned by the late NorthPark developer Raymond Nasher and his wife, Patsy, set a record at Sotheby's auction house in New York. On Friday, 131 Nasher items were auctioned in a single-owner sale to help fund the endowment of Dallas' Nasher Sculpture Center.

The top lot was a 1958 Pablo Picasso print, Buste de Femme d'apres Cranach le Jeune, which had a pre-sale estimate of $275,000 to $325,000, but fetched $657,000. It is an artist's proof that Picasso pulled from a set that had 50 numbered prints. It was the highest price ever paid for a print from that series.

The entire sale brought in $8.68 million.

On Wednesday evening, the Nashers' painting Le Baiser (The Kiss) sold for $17.4 million, setting a record for a post-1960 Picasso painting.

The Dallas couple's lifetime of collecting has left the Nasher Foundation able to divest odds and ends not critical to the mission of the Nasher Sculpture Center and use the proceeds to build an endowment.

Also on Friday, the Nashers' Black Numeral Series by Jasper Johns set a record for that series. The $409,000 gavel price far exceeded the $100,000 to $150,000 estimate. A Max Ernst bronze, La Genie de la Bastille, sold for $645,800, while a 14-inch Jean Dubuffet head brought $373,000.

The day started off with a bang when the first lot, a 6-inch Matisse head estimated at $150,000 to $200,000, sold for $433,000.

"The first two sales on behalf of the Nasher Foundation realized a sold total of over $36 million, exceeding the combined high estimate of $35 million," said Warren Weitman, Sotheby's chairman of North and South America. "Ray and Patsy's reputation as international collectors attracted bidding competition from around the world."

By the time seven more Nasher pieces are sold at the contemporary art sale on Wednesday and the American paintings sale on May 22, the total take should comfortably exceed $40 million.

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