Condé Nast’s Chairman Submits Prized Art to Sotheby’s Auction

Magazine giant, Condé Nast has had an extremely turbulent past few weeks which saw the closing of four of their renowned magazines in addition to the loss of hundreds of jobs.

Condé Nast’s chairman, Si Newhouse is certainly not immune from the turmoil and, in fact, this week he will be facing a personal loss of his own. A prized piece of art belonging to Newhouse’s collection, a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti entitled “L’Homme Qui Chavire,” goes up for auction at Sotheby’s tomorrow.

Despite the fact that Newhouse stands to lose as much as $10 million by selling the piece of art in the current market madness, Newhouse has decided that desperate times call for desperate measures, and he will go ahead with the auctioning off of his sculpture.

The sculpture was made in 1950 by Giacometti and the current official estimate, according to Sotheby’s, is between $8 million and $12 million while Newhouse reportedly bought the sculpture “in excess of $20 million” several years ago. Newhouse’s previous attempts to sell the sculpture privately failed as no interested buyers came forward, presumably influencing or resulting in Newhouse’s decision to bite the bullet and sell at auction tomorrow.

“L’Homme Qui Chavire” is French for “the falling man”, although the verb is also used to describe someone who is “capsizing” or “drowning”.