Cleveland museum paying $1.56M for painting

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Cleveland Museum of Art has won an auction and is paying $1.56 million for a painting by 20th century artist Alice Neel.

Chief curator C. Griffith Mann says the museum almost hit its limit in Wednesday’s bidding at Sotheby’s auction house in New York. The Cleveland museum was vying against as many as five bidders for the work, “Jackie Curtis and Rita Red,” which had been estimated to sell for as little as $400,000.

Mann calls the auction “nerve-wracking.”

The painting depicts two members of Andy Warhol’s circle in the late 1960s. It had been loaned to the museum in June by the estate of its previous owner.

Artist Neel was born at the dawn of the 20th century and died in 1984. She was known for her raw style of portraiture.