A painting by famed artist Kerry James Marshall has been sold by Chicago’s Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority for $21.1 million.

The price paid Wednesday in an auction at Sotheby’s New York set a record for a work by the African-American artist. A Sotheby’s spokesman says four bidders competed for the work, driving the selling price beyond the high estimate of $12 million.

“Past Times” had for years been displayed in the South Building of McCormick Place where a replica now hangs. The real painting was purchased in 1997 for $25,000.

Marshall, born in Birmingham, Alabama who grew up in South Central LA is now a resident of Chicago, is known for his depictions of African-American life.

Source: chicago tribune

(New York, NY ) Amedeo Modigliani’s 1917 masterpiece ‘Nu couché’ sold for $157.2 million – the highest auction price achieved in Sotheby’s history. Painted a century ago, ‘Nu couché’ is the greatest work from the iconic series in which Modigliani reinvented the nude for the Modern era. Upon their exhibition in 1917, these alluring images stopped traffic – quite literally – and prompted police to shutter the show. Today, the series is recognized as one of the seminal achievements in Modern painting.

Source: Sotheby

Washington, DC—New data released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) offers an insightful picture of the impact the arts have on the nation’s economy. The arts contribute $763.6 billion to the U.S. economy, more than agriculture, transportation, or warehousing.  The arts employ 4.9 million workers across the country with earnings of more than $370 billion. Furthermore, the arts exported $20 billion more than imported, providing a positive trade balance.

• The arts added four times more to the U.S. economy than the agricultural sector and $200 billion more than transportation or warehousing.

• The arts saw a $20 billion trade surplus, leading with movies and TV programs and jewelry.

• The arts trended positively between 2012 and 2015 with an average growth rate of 2.6 percent, slightly higher than 2.4 percent for the nation’s overall economy. Between 2014 and 2015, the growth rate was 4.9 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars.

source: Art.gov 

photo by Kim Bell

Jeff Bezos had a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving weekend. After record-breaking weekend sales, Amazon’s stock price hit an all-time high of $1,213.41 a share on Monday. That pushed Bezos’ net worth to over $100 billion, which is up 35% from the same period last year, according to Bloomberg.

Thanks to that recent surge, Bezos has once again passed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as the richest person in the world.

Source: BusinessInsider

Retired NBA player Al Harrington takes us behind the doors of his cannabis extract company, then sits down with former NBA commissioner David Stern to discuss marijuana reformation for medical purposes within the league.

1. Diddy ($130 million)

2. Drake ($94 million)

3. Jay-Z ($42 million)

4. Dr. Dre ($34.5 million)

5. Chance the Rapper ($32 million)

6. Kendrick Lamar ($30 million)

7. Wiz Khalifa ($28 million)

8. Pitbull ($27 million)

9. DJ Khaled ($24 million)

10. Future ($23 million)

11. Kanye West ($22 million)

12. Birdman ($20 million)

13. J. Cole ($19 million)

14. Swizz Beatz ($17 million)

15. Snoop Dogg ($16.5 million)

16. Nicki Minaj ($16 million)

17. Lil Wayne ($15.5 million)

18. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ($11.5 million, tie)

18. Rick Ross ($11.5 million, tie)

20. Lil Yachty ($11 million)

source: Forbes

A painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat from the collection of Yoko Ono is heading to auction.

The work, titled “Cabra,” may sell for as much as $12 million at Sotheby’s contemporary art sale in New York on Nov. 16, the auction house said Thursday.

Basquiat, who died at the age of 27 in 1988, is breaking records in the art world. In May, one of his paintings fetched $110.5 million at Sotheby’s, the highest price for any American artist at auction. A 1982 Basquiat canvas depicting boxer Sugar Ray Robinson sold for about $24 million last year.