Jeff Koons
Pink Panther
created in 1988
© Jeff Koons / ARS New York
Jeff Koons’ ‘Pink Panther’ goes to auction ‘Pink Panther’ is an iconic 1988 sculpture by Jeff Koons, depicting a sensual woman holding the Pink Panther cartoon character. The work will be auctioned at Sotheby’s New York on 10 May 2011, and it is estimated to fetch $20/30 million]]>
March 11 2011, source: Sotheby’s / theartwolf.com
On November 16, 1999, Jeff Koons’ ‘Pink Panther’ was offered for sale at Christie’s New York with a pre-sale estimate of $800,000. The work finally sold for $1,817,500, more than 4 times the previous auction record for a work by Koons. About a decade later, the same work comes back to the market, and might fetch $30 million. Crisis? Who said crisis?
Tobias Meyer, Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s, says that “together with ‘Balloon Dog’ and ‘Bunny’, ‘Pink Panther’ is a 20th-century masterpiece and one of the most iconic sculptures of Jeff Koons’s oeuvre”. In a press note, Sotheby’s describes the work as “a masterpiece not only of the artist’s historic canon, but also of the epoch of recent Contemporary Art”.
Arguably the loveliest work from Koons’ famous ‘Banality’ series, the 41 inches high porcelain ‘Pink Panther’ has it all to become a superstar of the art market season. Erotism and cartoons: who needs more? OK, it is as kitsch as kitsch can be; but, such as Damien Hirst’s ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’, Koons’ ‘Pink Panther’ is one of those works that you may like or may not like, but there is no arguing that they will become a symbol of the art of our days
Related content
Jeff Koons’s “Balloon Flower (Magenta)” (1995-1999) at Christie’s, June 2008
Sculptures by Jeff Koons at the Metropolitan Museum’s roof, October 2008
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