Christie's auction of Impressionist and modern art last night was considerably more successful that the Sotheby's auction the night before last. The event raked in $102.7 million—close to double Sotheby's haul of $61.3 million—and while it's still a long way off from what Christie's was pulling in when the going was good, it's nice to hear at least one victim of Bernie Madoff got to walk away with some (much needed) cash in his pocket. Jerome Fisher, a founder of Nine West who lost an estimated $150 million as part of the Ponzi scheme, managed to sell a Picasso, "The Musketeer With a Pipe," for $14.6 million, well within the estimated range of $12-$18 million. [NYT, WSJ]

There weren't too many shiny, happy people at Sotheby's last night as the auction house kicked off the spring season with works by Picasso, Giacometti, and Mondrian. Six months ago, back when it was already clear that the economy was headed downhill in a hurry, Sotheby's big seasonal auction had managed to offload $223 million worth of art. This year? The final tally for the 36 works that went under Tobias Meyer's hammer didn't even come close to Sotheby's already-low estimate, bringing in just $61.3 million. (Sotheby's had been hoping for $81.5 million). And some of the people most interested in getting high-priced art off their hands in a hurry—victims of Bernie Madoff, of course—walked away disappointed.

Everyone knows Vincent Van Gogh cut his ear off and gave it to a prostitute because he was kind of pathetic. But a new study suggests Van Gogh might've been awesome!

Auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's are gearing up for their semi-annual sales of Impressionist and contemporary art. So how bad is it going to be this time around? Sotheby's says it expects the sales to bring in between $179 million and $256 million, down from $411 million last fall and $742 million last spring. So pretty bad, basically. [WSJ]

Thehappycorp is an edgy little ad agency that most recently made news for getting Poster Boy to remix some MOMA ads, and getting fired by MOMA for it. Now a tipster says everyone's been fired.

A great, great story embodying the now-gone boom days: Louis Vuitton teamed up with Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami for an exhibit, with a pricey store. And the "prints" were just leftover scraps! Very fitting:

More depressing news from the art world: "In the first quarter of this year, only three pieces of contemporary art sold for over $1 million, a fall of 92 percent from the same period last year." [WB]

Maybe all the cool kids already knew this, but for the rest of us: did you know that for the low low price of $19.95, HIP and FRENCH movieperson Michel Gondry will draw your portrait?

NYC subway ad vandalartist Poster Boy is all up the fancy galleries now! Well not the "fancy" galleries, but galleries nonetheless. But do ad remixes really translate to gallery walls? Kinda.

Hello, pancake painter-to-the-stars Dan Lacey has completed another work of art suggested by you, the celebrity-obsessed Gawker readers. Today: "Mickey Rourke and the canine-star of Beverly Hills Chihuahua urinating on him."

Page Sixer Paula Froelich has a book coming out called Mercury in Retrograde ("chick lit"). The current cover, pictured, is rather serene. But the original cover, pictured below, was more DYNAMIC:

Liz Smith reports:

The AP is currently suing (and being sued by) Shepard Fairey over his famous 'Obama' image, stolen from the AP. Here's the front page of the AP photo site on Friday. Ha. SUBTLETY.

Pancake painter-to-the-stars Dan Lacey has unveiled his third painting inspired by you, the Gawker commenters. Today: "An S&M goat getting married to a pancake while Rush Limbaugh and a bunch of other conservatives look on in rage."

In 2007, NYC had "The Splasher," an anonymous pseudo-intellectual prick who went around defacing street art. Now England has its own pricks who've decided to deface Banksy murals. Unless it's an elaborate hoax.

Kate Ahlborn—Harvard '07, Upper East Sider, Vanity Fair writer—ventured into Brooklyn, where dirty people live, for a weird Brooklyny art show, and wrote about it. May she never fucking return.

Art just isn't what it used to be. According to the Mei Moses index released today, art prices fell 35 percent during the first quarter of 2009, which means Steve Cohen's ten-figure collection is now worth a much more modest $650 million. [FT]

To be an iconoclastic photographer, a person needs sensitivity, creativity and ideally a taste for the wild side of life. But not, apparently, a shred of financial acumen: Like Annie Leibovitz, who recently pawned the rights to her work past and future in order to pay her numerous mortgages, Nan Goldin is suffering from some cash problems, as in she's spent it all. "I don't know how I did that," she tells a reporter. "I made a lot of money but I spent it on all this stuff."

"Bathtub IV," above, depicts an operation by the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service. Loutit filmed both patrols and training exercises; we're guessing this is one of the latter. Either way, the combination of clean beaches and highly skilled first responders only adds to the appeal of Wee Sydney as a vacation destination.

Part of hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen's art collection went on display today at Sotheby's. Paintings and sculptures by Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso, Jeff Koons, and Richard Prince—works that normally reside at Cohen's castle in Greenwich—are all there to be ogled, although don't ogle them too closely if you don't want to come face to face with a burly security guard (see left). Dealbreaker got a sneak peek yesterday and brought a camera along. So if you don't plan to make it in person—it runs through April 14—or you just want to see what $450 million in art in one room looks like, well, off you go. [Dealbreaker]

Judging from this emailed stalker sighting, Alec Baldwin is either not much of a fan of his movie Lymelife, or he really wanted to talk to Stylista winner Johhanna Cox about something: