Sotheby’s closed the week of marquee autumn night gross sales in New York with three back-to-back, sold-out auctions on Thursday (20 November), bringing in a grand complete of $252.9m ($304.5m with charges). That sits across the center of the agency’s estimated take for the night time of between $211.3m and $289.3m (all estimates calculated with out charges).
The night time began with a sale of 13 tons from the property of the late Chicagoan collectors Cindy and Jay Pritzker that surpassed Sotheby’s excessive estimate of $88.5.m to herald $91.7m ($109.5m with charges). A stellar group of 24 works by Surrealist heavy-hitters from an unnamed assortment (marketed as “Beautiful Corpus”) adopted, producing $81.9m ($98m with charges), squarely inside the group’s estimate vary ($66.7m-$98.9m). The night time concluded with a multiple-owner sale of Fashionable artwork that, following three withdrawals, took in $78.9m ($96.9m with charges) throughout 29 tons, effectively inside the home’s pre-sale estimate of $71.1m to $101.9m.
“Folks responded rather well to the single-owner collections, each the Pritzkers and Beautiful Corpus, but in addition the collections inside the multiple-owner sale, from the [Matthew and Carolyn] Bucksbaum assortment, Geri Brawerman’s assortment and others,” Helena Newman, Sotheby’s chairman of Europe and worldwide chairman of Impressionist and Fashionable artwork—who commanded the podium for the third of the night time’s gross sales—mentioned afterwards. “The concentrate on Surrealism tonight was actually reflective of the surge in curiosity within the motion within the final a number of years, which was fed by latest museum exhibitions marking the motion’s centennial final 12 months.”
Auctioneer Oliver Barker conducts the sale of Frida Kahlo’s El sueño (La cama) (1940) at Sotheby’s in New York on 20 November
Courtesy Sotheby’s
It was a Surrealist work that sparked the night time’s largest fireworks and offered its second-highest worth. Frida Kahlo’s El sueño (La cama) (1940), a self-portrait of the artist in her four-poster mattress with a life-size skeletal sculpture laying above her, set off a protracted, two-way bidding conflict that pushed it previous its $40m low estimate. It in the end hammered for $47m to a consumer bidding by telephone with Sotheby’s senior vice chairman and head of Latin American artwork Anna Di Stasi. With charges the value got here to $54.6m, breaking the public sale file for Kahlo’s work (set by Sotheby’s virtually precisely 4 years in the past), for a piece by a Latin American artist and for a piece by a feminine artist, surpassing the Georgia O’Keeffe portray Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932), which Sotheby’s bought for $44.4m (with charges) in 2014 and is now within the assortment of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Artwork in Arkansas. Whether or not the Kahlo truly broke that file, given inflation, is disputed by some, together with The New York Instances which says the O’Keefe worth is the equal of round $60.5m as we speak.
“Frida Kahlo is a world icon, a model—we introduced this portray to Abu Dhabi and there have been traces across the block to see it,” Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s vice chairman and head of Impressionist and Fashionable artwork, mentioned earlier than the sale. “One of many unbelievable issues about this portray is that other than the setting within the sky and the roots rising out from the mattress body, this can be a sensible depiction of her bed room. Kahlo made her personal world so surreal that she wanted solely to color it faithfully.”
Prized Pritzkers
Vincent van Gogh, Parisian Novels (Romans Parisiens/Les Livres jaunes), November-December 1887 Courtesy Sotheby’s
One other home scene, painted gesturally however faithfully, was the night time’s high lot. Vincent van Gogh’s Parisian Novels (Romans Parisiens/Les Livres jaunes) (1887), which had hung for years within the Pritzkers’ library, set off a seven-minute bidding conflict between three telephone bidders and two folks in Sotheby’s new salesroom on the Breuer Constructing, pushing the value effectively past the on-request estimate of $40m. After some cajoling from auctioneer Oliver Barker—”Madam, can we’ve got one other one?”—the adviser and former Sotheby’s chairperson Patti Wong, bidding within the room on behalf of a consumer, prevailed with a profitable bid of $54m ($63m with charges).
Of the 13 tons on supply from the Pritzkers’ assortment, ten bought inside or above their estimate ranges, together with one other Van Gogh, the 1888 drawing Jardin public avec bancs à la Place Lamartine, which went to a web-based bidder for $2.4m ($2.9m with charges). One other standout was the uncommon architectural work by Henri Matisse Léda et le cygne (1944-46), which options the titular mythological scene flanked by minimal renderings of leaves on a bright-red background, all executed on wooden panels. It will definitely bought smack in the midst of its $7m to $10m estimate, for $8.5m ($10.4m with charges). The Matisse was considered one of simply three tons within the Pritzker sale that Sotheby’s had backed by a assure; all three bought inside or above their estimates.
Henri Matisse, Léda et le cygne, June 1944-Might 1946 Courtesy Sotheby’s
Max Beckmann’s large-scale (and scale-y) 1929 portray Der Wels (The Catfish) additionally set off fierce competitors, surpassing its excessive estimate of $7m and in the end being hooked with a $7.5m bid ($9.2m).
A surfeit of Surrealism
“We attempt to be self-aware and never too superlative,” Dawes mentioned earlier than the Beautiful Corpus sale, “however the Pauline Karpidas assortment we bought in London in September was in all probability the very best non-public assortment of Surrealist artwork to come back to market but, and this non-public assortment is simply nearly as good if not higher.”
The outcomes actually help that evaluation. Each one of many sale’s 11 assured tons in the end hammered for costs inside or above their estimate ranges, and in complete 11 of the group’s 24 tons bought for hammer costs above their excessive estimates
4 artists’ public sale information have been damaged, together with Kahlo and Hans Bellmer—twice. His ghostly gouache Mains et bras (round 1950-52) greater than doubled its excessive estimate of $180,000 to hammer for $400,000 ($508,000 with charges), surpassing the Surrealist doll-master’s earlier file, set through the Karpidas assortment gross sales in September. Ten tons later, his unsettling composition of disembodied decrease backs and legs sporting striped stockings, Les Bas rayés (1959), greater than doubled its personal $400,000 excessive estimate and bought for $850,000 ($942,000 with charges).
Dorothea Tanning, Inside with Sudden Pleasure, 1951 Courtesy Sotheby’s
Whereas it was Kahlo’s night time, Sotheby’s set a one other file for a number one feminine Surrealist, Dorothea Tanning, whose Inside with Sudden Pleasure (1951) bought for a hammer worth of $2.7m ($3.2m with charges), surpassing her earlier secondary market peak, set by Christie’s throughout final spring’s marquee gross sales. The night time additionally noticed a brand new file set for the Austrian Mexican Surrealist Wolfgang Paalen, whose chilly science-fiction scene Fata Alaska (1937) bought to a bidder within the salesroom for $850,000 ($1m with charges), practically doubling its excessive estimate of $450,000 and besting a file set by Christie’s in February 2023 by round $100,000.
Nonetheless extra Surrealism
The night culminated in Sotheby’s multiple-owner night sale of Fashionable artwork, which featured 29 works after three have been withdrawn: the Brazilian sculptor Maria Martins’s O Guerreiro (est $700,000-$1m), Claude Monet’s seascape Un Parc à Pourville (est $4m-$6m) and Cândido Portinari’s moody portray Mulata de vestido branco ($800,000-$1.2m).
The sale’s high lot was a bigger, painted model of the René Magritte drawing that closed out the Beautiful Corpus public sale. Le Jockey Perdu (1942), from the gathering of one other couple with deep ties to Chicago, Matthew and Carolyn “Kay” Bucksbaum, set off a race between two bidders within the salesroom that pushed the value to $10.2m ($12.3m with charges), squarely inside the $9m to $12m estimate.
One other group of works on supply had been deaccessioned by the Phillips Assortment in Washington, DC, with proceeds from their sale earmarked for funding future acquisitions. That group’s high lot, and the Fashionable artwork sale’s second-highest end result, was Georgia O’Keeffe’s wintry nonetheless life Massive Darkish Purple Leaves on White (1927), which had been within the Phillips Assortment since 1943. A two-way contest between telephone bidders pushed its worth over the low estimate of $6m and it will definitely hammered at $6.4m ($7.9m with charges).
René Magritte, Le Jockey perdu, 1942 Courtesy Sotheby’s
The opposite works from the Phillips have been a uncommon Georges Seurat drawing, Clowns et poney (1883-84), which bought for a within-estimate hammer worth of $4.2m ($4.8m with charges); and Arthur Dove’s 1943 canvas Rose and Locust Stump, which elicited only one bid and bought for a hammer worth of $600,000 ($681,000 with charges), simply half of its low estimate. The Phillips Assortment works have been among the many eight tons on supply within the Fashionable artwork night sale that have been backed by ensures.
Even because the night time’s auctions entered their third hour and the gang thinned, bidding on the Breuer Constructing remained sturdy. The white-glove night’s complete take of $252.9m throughout 66 tons was a major enchancment on the $152m ($186.4m with charges) Sotheby’s racked up through the equal public sale final spring, which featured 65 tons—amongst them an Alberto Giacometti bronze bust that was anticipated to carry greater than $70m however flopped and went unsold.
Thursday’s complete was effectively in need of rival Christie’s equal sale on Monday night time, which introduced in $574.7m ($690m with charges) from 80 tons, however taken collectively—and factoring in Phillips’s $54.7m ($67.3m with charges) outing on Wednesday—the New York autumn auctions have given the commerce a much-needed enhance of confidence after greater than two years of decline. Sotheby’s closes out the week on Friday with its day gross sales after which, following a break for Thanksgiving within the US, the artwork market’s collective consideration will shift south to Artwork Basel Miami Seaside and its attendant bacchanal of satellite tv for pc gala’s and events.
