New York auction could smash art world record

Christie's auction house is hoping to set new world records with a Picasso valued at $140 million and a Giacometti worth $130 million, as New York's spring auction season kicks off May 5.

Pablo Picasso's colorful "The Women of Algiers (Version 0)," depicting a scene from a harem, will be up for grabs when Christie's puts it on the auction block May 11.

The same goes for Alberto Giacometti's bronze statue "Man Pointing," of which there are only six casts in the world.

"Those two works can set a world record," said Loic Gouzer, senior vice president of Christie's.

"You don't have another chance to get them."

The painting and statue are the flagship works at the evening sale entitled "Looking Forward to the Past," which will see 35 pieces of art created between 1902 and 2011 auctioned off.

The rising price of artwork at auctions is attributed to a growing number of wealthy, private investors around the world, experts say.

Giacometti's sculpture

Giacometti's nearly 1.8-meter depiction of a wiry man holding up one hand and pointing with the other is the artist's "most celebrated sculpture," Gouzer said.

The Swiss sculptor's masterpiece represents "when Giacometti became Giacometti, the ultimate work, the Holy Grail of sculpture."

Meanwhile, Picasso's nearly four-by-five-foot canvas is "a masterpiece at the level of 'Guernica' and 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,'" Gouzer said.

"He painted several versions until he got this one," he added.

Picasso created the painting in 1955, inspired by 19th-century French painter Eugene Delacroix, but as a homage to Henri Matisse, who died in November 1954.

The work is one of the last major paintings by the Spanish master in...