Picasso Painting of Muse Dora Maar Comes to Auction for the First Time
2 min
A portrait by Pablo Picasso of his lover and muse Dora Maar will be sold at auction for the first time at a Phillips evening sale in May in New York and is estimated to realize as much as US$18 million.
Buste de femme au chapeau, 1939, depicts Maar, whom Picasso met in 1935 and remained with for a decade. Buste de femme remained in Picasso’s personal collection until he died in 1973, when Galerie Beyeler in Switzerland took ownership of the piece and kept it alongside other works from the artist’s Femmes au chapeau series, according to Phillips.
The piece has been in the same collection for the last 30 years, according to Jean-Paul Engelen, president, Americas, and worldwide co-head of modern and contemporary art for Phillips.
According to Phillips, the painting, only 24 inches by 15 inches, employs techniques from Cubism, and contains elements familiar to Picasso’s paintings of Marr, “including his distinctive rendering of her eyes, strong line of her nose, and radical combinations of frontal and profile views.”
Phillips
Phillips’ modern and contemporary evening sale on May 14 will also include three previously announced works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, including a large painting from the early 1980s, Untitled (ELMAR) , 1982, that could sell for more than US$60 million.
Phillips
Also in the sale is Barclay L. Hendricks’ 1977 work, Vendetta, with an estimate between US$2.5 million and US$3.5 million. The painting was featured in the artist’s first career retrospective, and toured across the U.S. from 2008 to 2009. Hendricks’ works rarely come to auction, and Engelen expects increased interest given a recent exhibition of the artist’s works at the Frick Collection in New York.
Phillips
Lastly, two sculpture “stacks” from Donald Judd will be sold. A 1978 set in stainless steel and yellow fluorescent Plexiglas, described as a “signature” piece by the artist completed when he was near the top of his career, is estimated to sell for between US$5.5 million and US$7.5 million. The second is a 1994 six-part set composed of Cor-ten steel and black Plexiglas finished just before the artist’s death early that year. It carries an estimate of US$2 million to US$3 million.
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
A record-breaking $11 million sale at The Centennial Collection has set a new benchmark for luxury apartment living in Bondi Junction.
As interest rates, inflation and market sentiment fluctuate, investors are being urged to focus on data, not panic.
The Federal Budget may have softened some of its proposed tax reforms, but it has exposed a bigger issue: too many families are relying on wealth structures that no longer reflect the realities of modern life.
3 min
For many Australians, the 2026 Federal Budget initially felt like a direct challenge to the way wealth is created, held and transferred between generations.
The headlines were immediate: changes to capital gains tax, reforms to discretionary trusts, restrictions on negative gearing and increased scrutiny of investment structures. Unsurprisingly, affluent families, business owners and investors began asking the same question:
Is the way we hold our wealth still fit for purpose?
In recent days, the government has announced several significant amendments following industry consultation and public feedback, including exempting testamentary trusts from the proposed 30 per cent minimum tax and expanding capital gains tax concessions for small businesses.
The backdown is welcome. But it also highlights something much bigger.
This Budget has accelerated a conversation that many Australian families have been postponing for years.
The conversation is not really about tax. It is about wealth stewardship.
For decades, Australians have built wealth through businesses, property, investments and careful long-term planning. Yet many families have not revisited the legal structures surrounding those assets in years, sometimes decades.
We often see clients who have spent years building significant wealth, only to discover their legal arrangements no longer reflect their current circumstances.
Their children are now adults. They may own multiple properties.
They may have sold a business, entered a second marriage, become grandparents or accumulated digital assets that did not exist when their original estate plans were prepared.
The trust that distributes income may need to be reconsidered. The bucket company may no longer be so attractive.
The Budget has simply exposed a reality that already existed: wealth structures cannot remain static while life continues to evolve.
Importantly, trusts themselves are not the issue.
Trusts are legitimate planning tools that provide flexibility, protection and continuity. When used appropriately, they allow families to adapt to changing circumstances over time.
And neither is tax the issue, really. Getting the fundamentals right is more important for long-term, sustainable wealth than a few favourable tax treatments around the edges.
The real issue is complacency.
Too often, families create structures and assume the job is done. It isn’t.
Estate planning is no longer a document you sign once and file away in a drawer. It is an ongoing process that should evolve alongside your life.
We are also seeing a broader shift in how Australians define wealth itself. It is no longer just the family home and an investment portfolio.
Modern wealth includes businesses, digital assets, cryptocurrency, intellectual property, frequent flyer points and increasingly complex family arrangements.
At the same time, Australians are living longer than ever before, meaning wealth may need to support multiple generations simultaneously. This creates new responsibilities and new risks.
How do you help your children enter the property market without exposing family wealth to relationship breakdowns?
How do you structure wealth so that it remains a source of opportunity rather than future conflict?
These are the questions families should be asking now.
The recent debate surrounding testamentary trusts also serves as an important reminder that policy decisions can have unintended consequences for vulnerable Australians. It is encouraging that the government has listened to feedback and clarified its position.
But the lesson remains: the wealth landscape is changing.
Increasingly, governments, regulators and tax authorities are paying closer attention to how wealth is held and transferred. That means families cannot afford to adopt a “set-and-forget” approach to their structures.
The families who will be best placed for the future are not necessarily those with the greatest wealth.
They are the families with the greatest clarity. Clarity around ownership, succession and governance. And clarity around how wealth will transition from one generation to the next.
Ultimately, preserving wealth is not about avoiding change.
It is about preparing for it.
Because the greatest risk is not change itself.
It is losing the ability to respond to it.
Anthony Hunt is Co-Founder of Wealth Lawyers and former COO of Westpac Private Bank. He advises business owners, investors and affluent Australian families on wealth protection, succession planning and intergenerational wealth transfer
From mud baths to herbal massages, Fiji’s heat rituals turned one winter escape into a soul-deep reset.
Rising rates, construction inflation and shrinking investor confidence are pushing Australia deeper into a dangerous housing spiral that monetary policy alone cannot fix.
