Andy Warhol Willem de Kooning Joan Mitchell Donald Judd Twenty-One Cranky Ways of Looking at Art Basel Miami Beach Yippee, We're All Going to Die How Unlike You Director of Montreal Museum Honored by French Government

Send a letter to the Editor

Save to Del.icio.us Digg this

The tally is second only to last November’s Post-War and Contemporary record $157.4 million result.

Only eight of the 91 lots offered failed to find buyers this round, while 40 lots sold for more than $1 million.

Ten artist records were set, including for Damien Hirst’s grisly confection, Away from the Flock, Divided [lot #62] from 1995 that made $3,376,000 (est. $3-3.5 million). It sold to New York dealer Dominique Levy of L&M Arts.

Though a few expensive lots bombed, including Francis Bacon’s large-scale but strangely unconvincing Man Carrying A Child from 1956 (est. $8-12 million), which carried a financial guarantee, the market absorbed a whopping amount of material.

Christie’s financial gamble of guaranteeing a large trove of Donald Judd works from the Judd Foundation apparently paid off as all but one of the 26 works sold for a total of $24,468,800, topping the $21.7 million estimate.

The evening action continues at Sotheby’s on May 10.

TOP FIVE PRICES

1. Lot #3—Andy Warhol, Small Torn Campbell’s Soup Can (Pepper Pot); Sold for: $11,776,000 (est. $10-15 million)

At just 20" by 16", this oil-on-canvas still life from 1962 may be one of the most expensive per-square-inch Post-War works ever sold.

The elaborately drawn and hand painted soup can, based on a black-and-white photograph by Warhol collaborator and lover Edward Wallowitch, is decidedly distressed.

The bare metal of the can is visible in parts and the famous red-and-white brand label is exquisitely torn and peeled, investing the image with convincing tromp l’oeil effect.

Guaranteed by Christie’s for a sum in the region of $10 million, the painting had been in the collection of art dealer Irving Blum for 39 years. Blum acquired the painting in a trade with New York collectors Eugene and Barbara Schwartz, who happily took a larger-scaled Roy Lichtenstein stretcher-frame painting.

“Irving Blum wanted it desperately,” recalls Barbara Schwartz, “and we thought we were getting a terrific deal.”

Blum and his storied Los Angeles Ferus Gallery are noted for many firsts, including the debut of Warhol’s 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans in 1962, which the Museum of Modern Art acquired in 1996 in a combination gift/purchase from Blum for a reported $15 million. That sounds like a downright steal these days.

The only comparable work at auction was the sale of Big Torn Campbell’s Soup Can (Pepper Pot), also from 1962, that sold at Christie’s New York in May 1997 for $3,522,500 (est. $1.5-2.5 million).

New York dealer Larry Gagosian, bidding on behalf of Los Angeles mega-collector Eli Broad who sat next to the dealer, outgunned the competition.

2. Lot #54—Willem de Kooning, Untitled; Sold for: $10,096,000 (est. $8-10 million)

Unlike his famously angst-ridden work of the 1950s, the artist’s Abstract Expressionist style mellowed a bit in the early 1960s as both fame and fortune made his life considerably cushier.

This large-scale oil on canvas from 1961 seems to celebrate the sun and the sea, redolent of his increasing time spent in the Springs of Eastern Long Island, far removed from Manhattan.

Much of that frenetic city life disappears in this glowing composition. Though no figures are articulated in any recognizable way, the flesh-colored tones of the juicy brushstrokes convey a sense of joyous figures cavorting in the landscape.

In fact, de Kooning told the painting’s first owner, Virginia Dwan, that the untitled, 80” by 70” work could be easily titled Flesh.

Bidding opened at $4.5 million and instantly became a ping-pong battle between Andrew Fabricant of New York’s Richard Gray Gallery and Dominique Levy of L&M Arts. Fabricant prevailed.

3. Lot #50—Willem de Kooning, Two Women (Study for Clamdigger); Sold for: $5,728,000 (est. $3.5-4.5 million)

A luscious and relatively small-scaled work from 1960-61, featuring a pair of Ruben-esque nudes in the landscape, this painting represents one of de Kooning’s most celebrated themes.