NEW YORK – A Jamie Wyeth work depicting his yellow Labrador with a black circle around his eye has sold for $218,500.
Christie’s said “Study of Kleberg” brought more than five times the $40,000 presale estimate.
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It was purchased Thursday by private art dealer Ann Richards Nitze on behalf of a client who was not identified.
Wyeth said he painted the circle around Kleberg’s eye in the 1980s after the pooch got too close to his easel. Wyeth is a big fan of the old comedy “Little Rascals,” which featured a pit bull with the same marking.
Wyeth is the son of American painter Andrew Wyeth and grandson of classic novel illustrator N.C. Wyeth.
He lives in Pennsylvania and Maine and has a studio in Delaware.
Carey says she didn’t know of Gadhafi link
NEW YORK – Mariah Carey says she was unaware that she was booked to perform a concert linked to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s clan — and she’s embarrassed “to have participated in this mess.”
Carey is among a handful of entertainers who were paid handsome fees to give exclusive private concerts. It was later revealed the people behind those concerts were the family of Gadhafi, whose country is in an open revolt against him and who faces an investigation for possible war crimes.
This week, Nelly Furtado announced she is giving the $1 million fee she was paid in 2007 to charity; Beyonce said that she donated her fees for a 2009 New Year’s Eve performance in St. Bart’s to Haiti earthquake relief once she discovered the Gadhafi link.
Carey performed in St. Bart’s in 2008. In a statement released Thursday, she said: “I was naive and unaware of who I was booked to perform for.”
King tackles JFK murder
NEW YORK – Stephen King’s next novel takes on a real-life horror story: The assassination of JFK.
“11/22/63,” named for the day of President Kennedy’s murder, tells of a school teacher’s desperate effort to prevent the tragedy. Scribner announced Wednesday that the 1,000-page book will come out on Nov. 8.
China may allow Dylan show
HONG KONG – A publicity official for China’s Ministry of Culture has confirmed it is reviewing an application from Bob Dylan to stage concerts in the country, a year after the American folk legend’s planned concerts in Beijing and Shanghai were canceled.
The official who would only gave his last name Zhou told The Associated Press on Thursday that the application was pending and the ministry’s decision would be posted on the ministry’s official website.
Franco critic: It was a joke
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – A writer for the Yale University student newspaper says a perceived feud between her and actor and fellow Yale student James Franco has been blown out of proportion.
Cokey Cohen tells The New Haven Register that her critical blogs of Franco’s Twitter posts and pictures while he was co-hosting the Oscars were “tongue-in-cheek” and just part of her duties as a blogger on youth culture for the Yale Daily News.
The 20-year-old junior and English major says she’s actually a big fan of Franco.
Franco is pursuing a doctorate in English at Yale.
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