"Alice later left Sotheby's to become a full-time artist, while Smith departed in 2019 when the auction house was bought by Patrick Drahi. But by chance, they met again in July 2024. "I was at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville watching [President Donald] Trump speak, which was surreal enough, then looked over and Tad was there," Alice says. "So, I looked him up and I was like, wow, this is interesting.""
"Before the Beeple phenomenon of March 2021, Alice became the first artist to sell an NFT through a major auction house in October 2020, when he sold Block 21 ( 42.36433° N, - 71.26189° E) from his 2019 Portraits of a Mind series at Christie's for $131,250, ten times the $12,000 to $18,000 estimate. Now, another blockchain-based work from the same series, Block 1 (24.9472° N, 118.5979° E), will be offered at Sotheby's in New York next week,"
Robert Alice became aware of Tad Smith nearly a decade ago while both worked at Sotheby's; Smith left in 2019 after Patrick Drahi's takeover and Alice became a full-time artist. They reconnected in July 2024 at a Bitcoin conference. Alice's Portraits of a Mind series pairs physical paintings with NFTs. In October 2020 Alice sold Block 21 at Christie's for $131,250, well above estimate. Block 1 (24.9472° N, 118.5979° E), a circular gold-leaf and acrylic painting covered in hand-painted code referencing the genesis block and linked to an NFT, will be offered at Sotheby's New York on 18 November with an estimated $600,000–$800,000.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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