LONDON (Reuters) - An original drawing of A.A. Milne’s popular children’s characters Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger and Piglet fetched $50,000 at auction on Tuesday.

The oval pencil sketch by E.H. Shepard, one of children’s literature’s most famous illustrators, shows Pooh dipping his paw into a pot of honey while sitting at a table as Piglet and Tigger look on.

Auctioneer Bonhams said the successful telephone bidder was from Germany and bought the picture for his wife, a long-time Pooh fan.

On the same day, Sotheby’s announced it was offering what it called the finest single collection of Shepard’s original drawings for the Pooh books to be sold at auction.

The illustrations, from the collections of Stanley J. Seeger and Christopher Cone, are among the most recognizable, including “He went on tracking, and Piglet … ran after him” depicting Pooh and Piglet turning to each other as they walk away.

It is expected to fetch 40-60,000 pounds.

Also on offer is “Bump, bump, bump - going up the stairs” featuring Christopher Robin dragging his bear by the leg up the stairs beside him. It is valued at 50-70,000 pounds.

The drawing on sale at Bonhams was a larger version of an illustration entitled “Tiggers don’t like honey” which appeared in Milne’s “The House at Pooh Corner,” one of four books he wrote about the bear in the 1920s.

Other works by Shepard on sale at Bonhams included a first sketch for Kenneth Grahame’s “Wind in the Willows,” depicting Rat and Mole lounging with a picnic on the riverbank.

It appeared in the published book with the caption: “Now pitch in, old fellow! and the Mole was indeed very glad to obey” and fetched 7,440 pounds, including premium.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White and Michael Holden)

LONDON (Reuters) - Christie’s post-war and contemporary art auction fell far short of pre-sale expectations on Sunday, as the financial crisis continued to erode confidence in a sector which until recently was hitting record highs.

The sale, held in October to coincide with the huge Frieze Art Fair in London, raised 32 million pounds ($55 million), a sum that includes buyers’ premium of 12 percent for the top lots. Of the 47 lots on offer, 26 were sold.

That compared with pre-auction expectations of between 58 and 76 million pounds, not including premium.

The result comes two days after rival auction house Sotheby’s raised 22 million pounds ($38 million) at its equivalent sale, below pre-sale estimates ranging from 31-43 million pounds.

Like Sotheby’s before it, Christie’s said its results were positive despite failing to get close to the low estimate.

“We are pleased with the results of this evening’s auction, where eight out of the top 10 works were acquired by private collectors,” said Pilar Ordovas, head of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s in London.

“Given the economic backdrop of the last several weeks where other markets have frozen, the art market continues with liquidity and active buyer participation albeit at different levels,” she added.

The results of the auctions are likely to cause jitters among auctioneers, collectors and sellers, with both Christie’s and Sotheby’s staging key November sales in New York.

The art market boom has been fueled partly by growing interest from super-rich buyers in Russia, the Middle East and the Far East.

Top-end works have also been seen as a relatively safe bet compared with turbulence gripping other investments.

But the severity of falls in values of equities, oil, property and other assets has left art vulnerable to a significant downward correction, experts have warned.

The top lot at Christie’s was a 1963 work by painter and sculptor Lucio Fontana, which went under the hammer for 9.0 million pounds versus an estimate of 12 million pounds.

One of only two oil portraits of Francis Bacon painted by Lucian Freud fetched 5.4 million pounds, toward the lower end of the pre-sale estimate range.

The 85-year-old Freud’s only other cameo of his fellow artist Bacon, painted in 1952, was stolen from a show in Berlin in 1988.

Art sales tend to be a safe bet during rough financial times, but many museums are fearful of what may lie in their futures.

“We know there’s a storm at sea and we know it’s going to hit land and it could get ugly,” said Glenn D. Lowry, the MOMA museum director. “But we don’t know how hard it will be or when it’s coming. So we are trying to make educated guesses.”

As a result, the museum instituted a temporary hiring freeze last week as well as a 10 percent cut in its general operating budget that will be revisited in December. [nytimes]

A lot of funding for museums comes not only from paying members (like the 115,000 signed up by MoMA who fork out anywhere from $50 to $60,000 for their privileges), but from people and companies who donate money. 

“Many predict that the impact of the slowdown will become far clearer at the end of the year, by which time most individuals will have made their annual tax-deductible donations. Museum officials will also be holding their breath to see whether loyal donors continue to give art or will be forced to sell part of their collections to raise capital for themselves.”

Tradeshows are a great adventure for many working people. Some of you get to set them up and work hard while others get to take a booze filled Vegas vacation and call it work. The problem with a lot of these shows though is the ugly design behind many of the booths. Here are a few examples of booth design I found unique and interesting. Maybe they can inspire some of you responsible for building them.

Photo by s,B - Michael Brenton-King of The Wachoo Wachoo.

A booth for plusserver, a German hosting company.

Photo by Judy B.

Yellow Pages booth at the Vancouver Trade & Convention Centre - the 2008 Interior Design Show.

Photo by nickgraywfu.

This is a very clean and bright booth for the Ojo personal video phone. Simple booth design can be tricky as a lot of times the booth can just come across as empty and lazy. Lighting and colors are very important.

Photo by pop up booth.

Their are many styles of booths out there but I’ve never seen one like this. Very original indeed.

Photo by TheImageGroup.

The NorthShore Villas and Yacht Club booth at the 1st Annual West MI Cottage & Lakefront Living Show, DeVos Place, Grand Rapids, Michigan. I really liked this design, it looks like a lot of work went into it. That background would have been fun to paint.

Photo by yourBane

Very clean and large. That large spinning fan must have looked great in action.

Photo by joeyinteractive.

This booth for Moshi is pretty swell. Very clean and very well done.

These were all over the web two years ago but not everyone is online 22 hours a day like I am. These are Jean-Luc Cornec’s telephone sheep from the Museum of Telecommunication in Frankfurt.