BERLIN, GERMANY.- The anniversary sale at Villa Grisebach Auctions in Berlin realized the highest turnover in the 20-year history of the company. The works of art auctioned off achieved more than 25 million Euros. As usual, the Evening Sale of Selected Works of Art produced the biggest part of the overall sales volume. At €2,186,500 Max Liebermann’s painting “Woman Watering the Flower Bed” rose five times above its estimate, and was sold to a German collector. Lyonel Feininger’s “High Houses” from 1919 fetched € 1,726,500 and went to a private collection in New York. A buyer from Switzerland purchased Henry Moore’s large-scale sculpture “ Working Model for Three Reclining Figures” for € 944,500. Other works also produced remarkable results: Karl Schmidt-Rottluff’s “House in the Snow” (€749,000), Alexej von Jawlensky’s “Abstract Head” (€599,500), Karl Hofer’s museum worthy “Pastorale” from 1933 (€588,000), Lyonel Feininger’s farewell-from-Germany painting “Dune at Eventide II” (€ 546,500), and August Macke’s “Woman with Guitar” (€ 404,000). Ernst Barlach’s early cast “Singing Man” was sold for € 392,500, while Lesser Ury’s “Nightly Street Scene, Berlin” went for € 185,500. “ Red Poppies and Laburnum in Blue Vase” from the special sale “Emil Nolde – Twenty Watercolors” was sold for the record price of € 335,000. Contemporary artworks realized excellent results as well, for example by artists like Gerhard Richter (€438,500), and Matthias Weischer (€145,250).

The public interest in art is as strong as never before: More than 1,500 international potential buyers crowded the two auction rooms for three days. At its 20th -anniversary Villa Grisebach’s annual turnover will exceed € 40 millions for the first time, which clearly states that Berlin is ever more becoming the center of the German art.