Versus Medici (1982). Image courtesy Sotheby s.
Sotheby’s marathon series of auctions on Wednesday evening felt like something of a return to normalcy, if only because, for the first time in more than a year, there were actually a few dozen collectors present in the New York salesroom.
In keeping with our new reality, the sale was also very much a hybrid affair: auctioneer Oliver Barker beamed in from London and specialists manned phone banks in Hong Kong and London as well as New York.
The auction house packed three separate sales an estate offering, a postwar and contemporary art sale, and an Impressionist and Modern coda into a nearly five-hour marathon. In all, the evening generated $597 million a more than 60 percent increase on its equivalent megasale mid-lockdown last June. (Read our report on the Imp-Mod segment of the sale here.)
After a dismal 2020, auction houses are looking to get back on track.
May 10, 2021
This untitled Keith Haring lot will be on sale at Sotheby s this week. Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP.
So, here we are, on the verge of another major and relatively “normal,” whatever that means these days auction season, as Christie’s and Sotheby’s get ready to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Impressionist, Modern, and contemporary art in the space of a single week. (Phillips’s sale has been pushed to June.)
And despite all that has changed in the past year, some things have remained the same or even shifted back to how they were before the pandemic. After a dismal 2020 for the auction houses, they’re now back on steadier ground, with the low end of the cumulative estimates this season reaching over $1 billion. (Does that ring a bell?)
Sotheby’s is honored to present works from the collection of legendary philanthropist and collector Mrs. John L. Marion. A testament to her taste and foresight, the present selection of works encapsulates the essential achievements of Post-War Abstract painting, and places these masterpieces in dialogue with the very best of American Pop. Taken together, the collection reflects myriad developments that took place over the course of the Twentieth Century, and testifies to its creator’s extraordinary vision.American Visionary: The Collection of Mrs. John L. Marion X
Sotheby s to offer Cy Twombly s Untitled (Rome)
Cy Twomblys Untitled (Rome). From the artists celebrated Blackboards series. Estimate $35/45 million. To appear at auction after remaining in the same private collection for nearly 30 years. Courtesy Sotheby s.
NEW YORK, NY
.- Cy Twomblys Untitled (Rome), from the artists celebrated series of Blackboard paintings, will star in Sothebys May marquee auctions this May. Once part of the celebrated Saatchi collection, the painting has since remained in the same esteemed private collection for nearly 30 years, where it hung alongside many of the artists best-known works. Estimated at $35/45 million, it will be offered alongside many of the greatest names of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Willem de Kooning, Robert Colescott and more in Sothebys Evening Sale of Contemporary Art on May 12th a sale that will follow the exceptional Collection of Mrs. John L. Marion.
Sotheby s to offer $25 million Paul Cézanne still life in Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale
Paul Cézannes Nature morte: pommes et poires. Estimate $25/35 Million. Courtesy Sotheby s.
NEW YORK, NY
.- From an exceptional and distinguished private collection, Sothebys Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale this May will be highlighted by masterworks from the defining Impressionist and Post-Impressionist French artists whose indelible bodies of work and artistic legacies shaped the course of Modern art history like no others: Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, and Claude Monet.
Cézannes Nature morte: pommes et poires (estimate $25/35 million) leads this outstanding group of four works. A poignant encapsulation of the artists greatest achievements, the dazzling canvas is an extremely rare example of the artists quintessential still lifes of this caliber remaining in private hands. With an illustrious provenance dating to epoque-defining dealer Ambroise Vollard, the pain