ARTIs the Boom Back?: “Angel Fernandez de...

ART

Is the Boom Back?: “Angel Fernandez de Soto,” a rare portrait from Picasso’s blue period, sold Monday night for $29.15 million--three times its estimated value and the highest price paid for a painting at worldwide auction since the market flattened out five years ago. The sale, at Sotheby’s in New York, also set a record for a Henri Matisse painting, when $14.85 million was paid for “The Hindu Pose,” topping the previous record of $14.6 million paid in 1992 for Matisse’s “Harmony in Yellow.” The auction, featuring works from the estate of New York banker Donald Stralem and his wife, Jean, were reminiscent of the boom years of art auctions in the late 1980s when eight-digit price tags were commonplace. Altogether, 46 of the 48 Impressionist and modern works from the collection sold, and the night’s total take--$65.22 million--was well above the pre-sale estimate of $38.7 million to $50.7 million. Sotheby’s said that the night’s total was the highest for any single-owner sale in five years. New York’s big-ticket auctions of Impressionist and modern art continue through Thursday.

POP/ROCK

Oklahoma Relief Concert: The Black Crowes’ concert at the Oklahoma City Music Hall tonight benefiting victims of the Federal Building bombing will be broadcast nationally via the Global Satellite Network, and can be heard locally on KLOS-FM (95.5) at 8 p.m. The two-hour concert will also be carried live at 6:30 p.m. on both America Online (keyword: help okc) and the Internet (https://american.recordings.com). Listeners will be encouraged to donate to the Mayor’s Disaster Fund and the Governor’s Victims and Family Fund. Telephone numbers for donations, which will also be announced throughout the show, are (900) 225-5442 (for $5 donations) and (800) 555-5442 (for donations of any amount).

TELEVISION

‘Peace Month’ on BET: Cable’s Black Entertainment Television has designated May as “Peace Month” to encourage an end to youth violence nationwide. A highlight of the monthlong campaign, co-sponsored by Young Sisters & Brothers (YSB) magazine, will be “Voices for Peace . . . Organizing to Stop Violence,” a May 27 live “Teen Summit” from Atlanta produced in cooperation with the Rainbow Coalition’s 1995 Youth Summit & Caucus. The peace initiative will also include other news and anti-violence specials, and BET will air some names and letters from viewers who sign and return “Black America’s Contract for Peace,” a 20-point pledge included in the May issue of YSB. “This is a call to action,” said “Teen Summit” host Belma Johnson. “We are the only ones who can end the violence.”

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Violence Ratings Proposed: U.S. Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) on Tuesday introduced legislation that would provide for a quarterly “report card” rating violence in television programming. The proposed ratings, which would be compiled by a nonprofit entity such as a university, would allow parents to “better supervise their children’s viewing habits,” Dorgan said. The National Assn. of Broadcasters successfully opposed similar legislation proposed by Dorgan in 1993.

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Chapman University Gift: Chapman University in Orange has received $1 million from longtime supporters Richard and Hyla Bertea to establish an endowed chair in music. The chair will initially be held by William Hall, dean of the university’s School of Music and conductor of the Master Chorale of Orange County. In 1980, Chapman named its music building Bertea Hall, in recognition of the family’s previous gifts.

QUICK TAKES

Pop star Elton John and cellist-conductor Mstislav Rostropovich shared a stage and one of the world’s biggest music awards Tuesday when the two jointly received the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm. The prize, worth $274,000 this year, was established in 1992 by Stikkan Andersson, who once managed the Swedish rock band ABBA. Previous winners are Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney and Dizzy Gillespie. . . . Fox premieres “My Wildest Dreams” on May 28 in the 9:30 p.m. Sunday slot. The new show, starring Lisa Ann Walter as a wanna-be rock star turned wife, mother and career woman, gets a six-week summer tryout in the time period, previously held by “Dream On” and most recently by repeat episodes of “Married . . . With Children.” . . . Monday’s “Real Stories of the Highway Patrol,” airing locally on KCBS-TV Channel 2 at 6:30 p.m., will include an interview and ride-along with Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger, who arrested Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh in Perry, Okla., approximately 90 minutes after the blast occurred.