Elvis Presley meets President Nixon in 1970

PD Photo: Elvis Presley meets President Richard M. Nixon in the White House Oval Office on December 21, 1970, photo by White House photographer Ollie Atkins (the-then chief White House photographer).

On December 21, 1970, the original 'King of Rock and Roll' Elvis Presley, at his own request, met then-U.S. President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office of The White House, when he reportedly expressed his patriotism and his contempt for the hippie drug culture. This may be to debunk the negative publicity he received as a result of the stories contained in the book entitled ‘Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley’ by Peter Guralnick (Back Bay Books; 1999).

During the meeting Presley asked Nixon for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge to add to the items/memorabilia he had been collecting. Nixon who felt the meeting awkward, suggested that Presley could send a positive message to young people and it was therefore important for Presley to ‘retain his credibility’. Presley is reported to have told Nixon that The Beatles, whose songs he used to perform in concerts, exemplified what he saw as a trend of anti-Americanism and drug abuse in popular culture.

Ironically, this picture was being described to be 'of the two greatest recording artists of the 20th century' by the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace (now rechristened as the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum from July 11, 2007, when it became a federal facility), and sold several souvenir items with this photo with the caption, "The President & the King." The photo is now available from the Archival Research Catalog of the National Archives and Records Administration under ARC Identifier 1634221.

Nothing to wonder about the huge sales this photo could generate, as in a recent auction, Elvis Presley's strands of hair collected by his barber Homer M. Gilleland went for £10,700. A three-page real estate sales contract signed by Elvis Presley fetched £25,000, his gold and diamond 18 carat Cameo sold for £25,000, his legendary gold trimmed sunglasses sold for £13,800, and his gun, a .22 Harrington and Richardson seven-shot revolver was snapped up for £7,700.

Manet's 'Self-Portrait with Palette' sold for $33.4 million

Photo: Self-Portrait with Palette (1879), oil on canvas painting by Edouard Manet, dimensions 83 cm x 67 cm (33 in x 26 in), private collection.

A self-portrait by French painter Edouard Manet, titled Self-Portrait with Palette, has sold for a record price of over $33.4 million at an auction in London, Sotheby's said. It was the highest price paid for a picture by Manet.

The French artist Edouard Manet’s 1879 impressionistic painting ‘Self-Portrait with Palette’ (also known by names such as Autoportrait a la palette, Portrait de Manet par lui-même, Manet à la palette, Selbstporträt mit Palette), is one of his two self-portraits and the only one in private collection, the other being ‘Self-Portrait with Cap’ (1879) currently in the Bridgestone Museum of Art in Tokyo, Japan.

Self-Portrait with Palette has been described as one of the greatest self-portraits in the entire canon of art history. It is the only self-portrait by Manet in which he depicted himself as an artist, though he depicted himself in several other paintings as one of many figures in large compositions in such works as Fishing (1860-61), Music in the Tuileries (1862), and The Ball of the Opera (1873). The painting shows Manet working with his left hand, but it is believed for certain that he was not left-handed, and hence the painting shows a mirror image of him. Also, watch his coat lapel and pocket that clearly indicates a mirror reflection of him, which was used as a model for the painting.

When art historian and Manet’s biographer Adolphe Tabarant asked Manet's stepson Léon Leenhoff about the time at which Manet had been stricken with Syphilis, Leenhoff said it was in 1879, which explains why Manet, who had never before painted a self-portrait, had painted two within that year, possibly with the reality of near-future death, he felt a need to come to terms with himself.

At the auction of the Loeb collection (owned by the collector couple John and Frances L. Loeb from New York) on 12 May 1997, the painting was sold for $18.7 million to the Casino developer Steve Wynn, though it was acquired by the Loebs for $176,800. Steve Wynn displayed Self-Portrait with Palette in his hotel, Hotel Bellagio and Wynn, Las Vegas. In March 2005, it was privately sold to Steven A Cohen, a high profile art collector and hedge fund manager, who, it is speculated, might have paid between $35 million to $40 million.

According to 7 May 2010 reports, Steven A Cohen decided to auction the painting at Sotheby's on 22 June 2010, at an expected price of $30-$45 million. Though it could not live up to his maximum expectations, the painting was sold for a record $33.4 million to the New York dealer Franck Giraud, who was bidding at Sotheby’s sale in London. The Manet painting was among 51 lots in Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist and Modern Art works in a series of auctions in London over the fortnight.

The previous highest price paid for a Edouard Manet was £17.8 million ($26.4 million) for the 1878 street scene ‘La rue Mosnier aux drapeaux’ at Christie’s in New York in November 1989.

Henri Matisse’s ‘Odalisques jouant aux dames’ (1928) was sold for more than £11 million. In February an Alberto Giacometti bronze sculpture has become the most expensive piece of art to be sold at an auction after it was sold in London for more than £65 million.

London this week is hosting a number of auctions of Impressionist and Modern Art works with sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams. The other highlights of the auction were paintings by Henri Matisse, André Derain and Chaïm Soutine, which have never appeared at auction before.

Art investment pundits predict that works by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Henri Matisse will lead auctions at the top end of the art market, as it is recovering from the biggest slump since 1991.

Portrait of Ria Munk III by Gustav Klimt sold for £18.8 million

Image: Frauenbildnis (Portrait of Ria Munk III) an oil and charcoal on canvas work created by a leading Viennese artist at the turn of the 20th century Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), sold at Christie’s London for £18.8 million on June 23, 2010 – image scanned from an art catalogue.

The full length portrait Ria Munk III (Frauenbildnis) depicts a wealthy young Jewish girl, Ria Munk, niece of Klimt’s major patron Serena Lederer. Ria Munk committed suicide after a row her lover in 1911. Monk’s mother Aranka commissioned Klimt to paint a deathbed portrait of the girl, after his first two efforts were rejected by the family. He began work on Ria Munk III in 1917, painting it in bright colors and showing Ria in repose against a richly decorative background.

After Klimt’s death the following year, the painting hung in the Austrian industrialist family’s lakeside villa at Bad Aussee until 1941. During the Second World War, as part of Hitler’s Ethnic Cleansing plan, that later became notorious as the Holocaust in which an estimated six million Jews were murdered, Nazis captured the house and all the belongings of the Munk Family and ejected them from their property because they were Jewish.

The portrait passed to William Gurlitt, an art dealer. In 1953, Ria Munk III was donated to a gallery in Linz, that later became the Lentos Museum where the portrait remained till last year when it was voluntarily returned to the heirs of the Munk family who had sent it for sale at Christie's on June 23.

Portrait of Ria Munk III sold for £18.8 million, more than its estimated price -- £14-18 million ($20-26 million). According to Giovanna Bertazzoni, Christie’s director of Impressionist and Modern art, ‘the picture was only the second or third comparable example of the artist’s work to be offered at auction over the past 20 years’.

Works by Klimt are on the list of the world’s most expensive paintings. According to reports, collector Ronald Lauder purchased Klimt’s 1907 ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I’ for his New York-based Neue Galerie in 2006 for $144.8 million.