Picasso artworks auctioned for combined $109M in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Eleven Pablo Picasso artworks have been sold for a combined $109 million in a Las Vegas auction coinciding with the artist’s 140th birthday. The nine paintings and two ceramic pieces had been displayed inside the Picasso restaurant at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art for more than two decades until owner MGM Resorts decided earlier this year to sell them. Auction officials say Picasso’s 1938 portrait of his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter entitled “Femme au béret rouge-orange” (“Woman in a reddish-orange hat”) sold for $40.5 million, well above estimates of $20 million to $30 million. The painting last sold at auction in the 1980s for around $900,000.