Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Sotheby’s has won the right to sell the $200mn art collection of Palm Beach beauty businesswoman Sydell Miller, who died in February. With her husband, Arnold, she co-founded the false-eyelash company Ardell and the salon product business Matrix Essentials, which she sold to Bristol Myers Squibb in 1994 (it is now part of L’Oréal).Miller, by then widowed, turned to collecting around this time and bought across a range of styles, including French 18th-century furniture, 20th-century European design and Modern and contemporary art. The cream of the Miller crop, about 25 works, will be offered in a single-owner sale in New York in the week of November 18, topped by a late water lily painting by Claude Monet, “Nymphéas” (c1914-17), estimated at around $60mn. Pablo Picasso’s painting “La Statuaire” (1925), which Miller bought at auction in 1999 for $11.8mn, will be offered at about $30mn. Design highlights include a 2001 octagonal table incorporating a herd of gilded elephants by François-Xavier Lalanne, which Miller commissioned (est $4mn-$6mn).Jodi Pollack, Sotheby’s worldwide co-head of 20th-century design, describes Miller as “a trailblazer” in that “she really leaned into the integration of art, design and objects, a trend we see more of today”. The collection, which is not guaranteed, comes to a market in need of a boost — global auction sales fell 27 per cent in the first half of this year compared with 2023, according to ArtTactic.The organisers of Delhi’s India Art Fair are launching a contemporary art and design event in Mumbai, to run November 13-16 2025. “Mumbai is a film, entertainment and financial capital, with a diverse cultural community, and has seen a rise of private galleries and institutions in the past few years,” says Jaya Asokan, director of what is now known as India Art Fair Delhi and the new India Art Fair Contemporary. Recently founded institutions include the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, which opened last year. The new fair will be nearby in the wealthy family’s Jio World Garden venue.The timing of the latest fair, planned for 50-70 exhibitors, means it will probably coincide with the boutique Art Mumbai, which launched successfully last November. Asokan says her hope is that the events will overlap (Art Mumbai has yet to confirm its dates for 2025). “As in London, New York and Hong Kong, Mumbai could have a dedicated moment in the international calendar,” she says.This year, Mumbai overtook Beijing as the city with the most billionaires in Asia, according to the Hurun Research Institute. The Delhi fair, owned by Angus Montgomery Arts, has helped stimulate a revival of India’s art market in the past few years and runs its 16th edition in February 2025. Torrential rainstorms didn’t dampen enthusiasm for the efforts of viennacontemporary’s new director, Francesca Gavin, to revitalise this fair as a distinct showing of art from central Europe (September 12-15). Of the 98 exhibiting galleries at this 10th edition, nearly half were from Austria, with 20 other countries, including Lithuania, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, also represented.“When people think of Vienna, they think of its history, but I want them to see the vitality of its contemporary art scene and for the fair to reflect the city’s increasingly young and Balkan communities,” Gavin says. Exhibitors from Germany and Italy show how “it’s not just about the east. If you stick a pin in the middle of Europe, you get where we are,” she adds.The pace of sales was slow, although some exhibitors, including Budapest’s Ani Molnár, fared well with artists such as the late Tamás Konok (four works sold for between €2,800 and €5,000 each early on). “There are so many Hungarian collectors here. Vienna is only a three-hour drive away and they want to see us in a good quality fair,” Molnár said. Even when sales weren’t immediate, gallerists were glad to be in the fold. “We are from Slovenia. We don’t have a market at all there — this is a hundred times better,” said Uroš Legen, gallery manager of Ljubljana’s P74.The fatal storms, which ravaged central Europe last week, forced the closure of the coinciding Parallel Vienna fair in the Otto Wagner Areal on September 15, but organisers have extended its hours to this weekend.Also opening in Vienna last week was the month-long Curated By gallery festival, supported with €250,000 from the city of Vienna and Austria’s ministry of culture. Their funding helps 24 of the city’s galleries host shows organised by outside curators under a changing theme (“Untold Narratives” this year). “It is my absolute favourite event. There are things to discover and also to buy. It is not a [non-commercial] biennale,” said participant Emanuel Layr. His group show, including work by PopeL, Jeanne Dunning and Puppies Puppies, is curated by the American artist Gaylen Gerber.At Galerie Kandlhofer, a show based around the human body is organised by the independent curator Tevž Logar. “It really seems unique for commercial galleries to get [state] support. And having an outside curator means we can create something bold, outside of the gallery programme,” says gallery founder Lisa Kandlhofer. Curated By runs until October 19.London gallerist Sid Motion has joined forces with Tom Cole, previously co-owner of The Sunday Painter and now an independent consultant, for a series of four exhibitions anchored in craft. Their first show, Dust to Dust, explores decay and renewal, and opens in Motion’s gallery on Saturday (until November 2). The exhibition combines clay work by Phoebe Cummings (from £2,000) with a loaned 1968 sisal (carpet) work by Magdalena Abakanowicz, shown alongside flower photographs made by Robert Mapplethorpe towards the end of his life ($35,000-$45,000, editions of 10).Their collaboration provides “moments for more curatorial projects, with something a bit more fresh than, say, doing art fairs”, Motion says. Cole, who co-ran The Sunday Painter between 2015 and 2023, says: “I’ve worked on my own and I’ve been in collaborations, and the latter is much more preferable.”Find out about our latest stories first — follow FTWeekend on Instagram and X, and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen
