Pablo Picasso “Nudes in a Forest,” Paris, spring 1908 watercolor, gouache and graphite on wove paper 47.6 x 59.1 cm (18 3/4 x 23 1/4 in.), Philadelphia Museum of Art / Courtesy of National Gallery of Art Pablo Picasso was the most inventive artist the West has ever known, and his drawings let us…
Roberta Smith devoted an article in “The Week in Review” section of the New York Times to the guessing game about the anonymous buyer. Bemoaning the “irksome” secrecy of art sales, she conjured a rogue’s gallery of possible bidders, including “Buyer X,” a “puppet master,” a “Russian oligarch” fearing “home invasion or too much unfriendly attention from Vladimir Putin,” and “someone with vast sums of money stashed in a Swiss bank account or a dubious tax shelter.” All very James Bond. Buyer X must be smiling.
This is one of the most important works of art to be offered at auction in decades