Auction houses take hits, museums feel heat, designers take plaudits
By Deb Krajnak
CNN.com Arts & Style Editor
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Picasso's portrait of his wartime mistress Dora Maar, "Bust of a Woman Seated in a Chair," 1939, sold for $4.7 million at Christie's in May
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(CNN) -- Ethics was a theme in the art world in 2000 as a price-fixing scandal tainted the world's two top auction houses, paintings looted by the Nazis were returned to heirs, and questions were raised about the authenticity of Internet art sales.
Innovations were honored in design, and two veteran fashion icons were recognized for their impact on style.
Sotheby's, the world's largest auction house, and its former chief executive pleaded guilty in October to a multimillion-dollar price-fixing scheme with rival Christie's. Together, Sotheby's and Christie's control nearly the entire $4 billion auction market.
Sotheby's admitted its role in the antitrust conspiracy uncovered during a three-year Justice Department probe. Diana "Dede" Brooks pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate antitrust laws.
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Despite the scandal, spring and fall auction sales were considered strong. In November, a Mark Rothko abstract painting sold for $11 million at Sotheby's in a $43 million contemporary art auction that set records for 12 artists. Records also were broken at Christie's.
U.S. and European museums continued to investigate their collections and seek out the rightful owners of artwork confiscated from Jews by the Nazis in World War II. In November, the National Gallery of Art in Washington said it was returning a 17th-century Flemish oil painting, "Still Life with Fruit and Game" by Frans Snyders, to the heirs of a French Jewish family. Earlier in the year, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts joined other museums using their Web sites to try to trace ownership of items in their possession.
The minimum asking price was just 25 cents, but eBay bidders hoping to cash in on a possibly undiscovered painting by the late modernist Richard Diebenkorn pushed its price to $135,805. When the seller, a Sacramento-area lawyer, admitted he made up parts of the description, eBay voided the sale. Federal authorities subsequently widened their probe into the potential for online cons.
Rem Koolhaas became the first Netherlands architect to receive the coveted Pritzker Architecture Prize. A jury of design and architecture experts cited his flair for unconventional and creative designs over the past 20 years.
Among his projects: a "three-story" home in Bordeaux, France, for a wheelchair-bound man. It features a glass room that acts as an elevator between the top and bottom living quarters.
In November, the American Institute of Architects chose architect Michael Graves as its Gold Medal 2001 winner. Like Koolhaas, Graves -- whose versatile designs range from teapots to corporate headquarters -- was praised for his innovative work.
For nearly 40 years the fashions of Italian designer Valentino have symbolized elegance and glamour. In recognition of his talent, the Council of Fashion Designers of America gave him its highest honor -- a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Valentino also has shown he can bend with the times. He referred to his fall/winter 2000 couture collection as "easy couture," explaining that women still want couture, but they also want easy-to-wear separates.
Another fashion icon, Italian designer Giorgio Armani, grabbed the spotlight at New York's Guggenheim Museum, where a retrospective featured 25 years of his collections.
"Fashion is at the heart of human expression, and is a mirror that reflects society and its culture," Armani said.
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