Serving as clear evidence that the truly rich remain unshaken by any financial catastrophe, regardless of scale, a copy of 1939’s DETECTIVE COMICS #27 featuring the first-ever appearance of BATMAN changed hands yesterday for $1.075 million, trumping this week’s previous sale of a SUPERMAN comic book for a paltry $1 million. The book’s sale by HERITAGE AUCTION GALLERIES in Dallas, Texas, sets a new world record and the book’s final price was determined by seven anonymous international bidders who competed for the book on the company’s website. At this pace, you can guarantee Amazing Fantasy #15 featuring Spider Man’s debut, will be the next record breaker…

One of the fashion world’s foremost visionary designers and couture fine artists ALEXANDER McQUEEN was found dead today in his London apartment, an apparent suicide just days after the death of his mother, and the suicide of one of his close friends Isabella Blow, who discovered the young designer and helped forge his early career:

ALEXANDER MCQUEEN IN APPARENT SUICIDE AFTER THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER
David Brown, Sadie Gray and Laura Pitel | TIMES ONLINE

The British fashion industry lost one of its brightest stars yesterday with the apparent suicide of Alexander McQueen, who was found hanged at his Central London home.

The designer, 40, had been grieving over the death of his mother, Joyce, who died on February 2. He had been due to attend her funeral today.

The loss of one of the most commercially successful and respected British designers has cast a pall over next week’s London Fashion Week. Friends said that he had been under pressure to complete his autumn/winter women’s wear collection for next month’s launch in Paris. One of his lines, McQ, was due to be shown at New York Fashion Week yesterday but was cancelled. The designer was also known to be upset that a recent relationship had ended.

McQueen recently described the suicide of his mentor — the style icon Isabella Blow — as “the most important thing he had learnt in fashion”. During a newspaper interview conducted by his mother, McQueen was asked what was his most terrifying fear. He replied: “Dying before you.” Click HERE to continue reading…

Supertouch buddies FRIENDS WITH YOU (aka: Sam Borkson and Tury Saondoval) have just launched a new website and with it some must-have new products like FWY iPhone cases, USB drives, art prints, T-shirts, and more. Remember, consumerism is patriotic…

Gearing up for the massive global throwdown that is WORLD CUP, fashion sportswear brand PUMA has teamed up with KEHINDE WILEY in a poignant celebration of African football. The company sponsors a total of 12 African teams, four of which have qualified for the World Cup being held this year in South Africa. Wiley created portraits of three Puma-sponsored football stars; Samuel Eto’o of Cameroon, John Mensah of Ghana and Emmanuel Eboué of Ivory Coast with each player wearing their national team kits.

A fourth “Unity” Portrait was painted with all three players together, symbolizing the united countries of Africa. The players’ pose was inspired by a pendant Wiley discovered while touring the Continent. In the “Unity” Portrait, the players are wearing the Puma Unity Kit, a limited edition uniform designed to be a third kit shared by all African teams, symbolizing greater African unity. The brown pigment in the kit is a customized Pantone created by mixing actual soil samples from four different African nations—Ghana, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire and Mozambique. The brown to blue color gradient represents the soil to the sky progression. In each portrait, Wiley captures the essence of each player using the rich heritage, customs and people of Africa as inspiration.

The individual portraits, measuring 5 feet by 6 feet and the “Unity” portrait measuring 9 feet by 12 feet, were unveiled in Berlin on January, 20 2010. The portraits will then travel as an exhibition beginning in February to Paris, London, New York, Beijing and Milan, ending in South Africa in June for the World Cup.

Born in Los Angeles to an African American mother and a Nigerian father, Wiley describes his relationship with Africa as “one of searching and longing.” Kehinde, which means “second born of twins” in Yoruba, grew up without knowing his father and curiosity led him to Nigeria at the age of 20 to retrace his roots. Upon meeting his father, Wiley completed a series of portraits of him, and later, in 2007, returned to Africa to compile a body of work entitled “The World Stage: Africa Lagos-Dakar,” which was exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Kehinde’s distinctive patterns (taken from local African sources) will appear in Puma’s Spring/Summer 2010 Africa lifestyle collection of apparel, footwear and accessories. The Seven graphic patterns from Wiley’s existing work are integrated throughout the bright, bold, color-blocking patterns of the collection, including a limited edition Kehinde Wiley football boot. HAVE A LOOK:

THE KEHINDE WILEY COLLECTION:

Supertouch buddy and upcoming “Stages” art show participant MARC NEWSON created his iconic “Lockheed Lounge” chair in 1988 and in recent years it has become the most famous piece of designer furniture to ever change hands at auction. Last week saw an artist proof of the silver aluminum chaise lounge that previously belonged to the artist’s mother (and once made an appearance in Madonna’s 1993 “Rain” music video) close out the design auction at PHILLIPS DE PURY & CO in London for a record $1.6 million USD, a new record for a piece of design furniture. The chair broke its own sales record previously established at a 2007 Sotheby’s auction when the chair brought in $968,000 USD. Amazingly, the design world has managed to buck the massive sales slump currently facing the art world with resale values remaining virtually undiminished and demand for stellar pieces consistently high. Maybe the fact that it’s art you can actually helps justify the splurge in a downturn…

In a true sign of the times, the art world’s current downturn has been bucked by a dead artist unlike any other before or after him—namely, ADOLF HITLER. In a move straight from the WTF?!? Files, the murderous dead German dictator has made a significant posthumous move in the art world by managing to earn nearly $12,000 USD last week when 15 of his original watercolors—including the self-portrait from 1910 seen here—were put up for auction at MULLOCK’S:

HITLER’S ART ATTRACTS BIG SALE PRICES
Source: CNN

LONDON, England—A painting by Adolf Hitler sold for almost $15,000 Thursday–more than six times as much as expected.

The watercolor was one of 15 items of Hitler art being sold at auction. Together, the artworks by the Nazi leader fetched almost $120,000.

They had expected to raise just under $50,000, auction house Mullock’s of Shropshire estimated.

Many of the pictures were on the market because one of the sellers wanted money to install a new central heating system in his house, a spokesman for the auction house said.

“The watercolors came from a collector who is a regular vendor of ours,” said Richard Westwood-Brookes, a historical documents expert at Mullock’s. “He’d forgotten about them for years. He found them in his garage.”

He refused to disclose the identity of the seller, as a matter of policy.

Thirteen watercolors were expected to fetch $580 to $2,200 apiece, while the lone small oil painting was estimated at up to $30,000, the auctioneer estimates.

All of the watercolors shattered expectations — 12 of them selling for between $4,400 and $9,000.

The remaining watercolor — a 1910 painting showing a figure sitting on a stone bridge — fetched almost $15,000. There has been speculation that the figure was a depiction of Hitler himself.

The oil painting sold at only almost $20,000. A pencil sketch signed “A Hitler 1914″ went for almost $4,700, beating the auctioneer’s estimate of up to $3,700.

An easel thought to have belonged to Hitler sold for nearly $15,000, having been expected to bring $2,900 to $5,800. An anonymous bidder purchased it by phone.

Hitler dreamed of being an artist as a young man, and although he failed to get into the Vienna Academy of Arts, he supported himself by painting watercolors for several years before World War I, according the Holocaust Encyclopedia of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The auction also includes dozens of items related to Hitler’s time as leader of Nazi Germany — including documents from concentration camps where those deemed “undesirable” by the Nazis were imprisoned, sterilized and murdered. Approximately 6 million Jews were killed in Nazi death camps, alongside millions of political prisoners, homosexuals, Gypsies and others. Click HERE to continue reading…

We’ve said it many times before on ST: We don’t do streetwear collabs here, but this one’s bulletproof (and guaranteed to leave a nation of young sneakerhead zombies scratching their heads wondering who LOU REED is). Too bad the old man’s not still in his “Transformer” period…

Last year saw the art market operating at unprecedented highs with works by blue chip artists being snapped up as commodities in an array of auctions that made the heads of even seasoned dealers spin. Of course, by year’s end Damien Hirst had claimed the title of “ultimate master of the game” with his masterfully timed, record setting “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” Sotheby’s auction at the precise moment the entire worldwide financial market threw a rod and seized. Since then auction houses have been in the kind of despair heretofore known only to the American auto industry while the art market in general has slowed considerably in keeping with the beleaguered economy. The International Asian Art Fair scheduled to take place during this year’s NYC-based Armory show in NYC was even cancelled due to financial concerns and was quickly followed suit by the Moscow World Fine Art Fair (May) and the Salzburg Fine Art Fair (August) which were killed off entirely for 2009. Needless to say, the February auctions by Sotheby’s, Christies, and Phillips de Pury that began in London on February 5th and run through the 13th are off to a promising start with a smaller, more carefully curated collection bringing in nice returns (the Sotheby’s evening sale brought in $25,785,250 alone) and brightening expectations for this year’s art market considerably in the process:

“Predictions of an art market meltdown were confounded in London this week as six sales of impressionist, modern and contemporary art at Christie’s and Sotheby’s turned in solid results.

The auction houses managed to restore confidence to a jittery market with successful sales by radically shrinking the size of the catalogue and lowering estimates compared with last year. Some distress selling is, however, beginning to filter through.

Among the week’s highlights were a classic impressionist painting by Monet that fetched £11.2m, a Degas sculpture that sold for £13.3m and a carved stack of cartoon-like animals by Jeff Koons that made £2.8m. The day sales, which offer more moderately priced works, also proved successful.

“We feel a lot better than we did a week ago,” said James Roundell, a London dealer. “At best, people thought the sales would be patchy. These results send a positive message to the market.” Click HERE to continue reading…

We certainly saw this coming a mile away…

Chinese artist O ZHANG covers her bases…