An Evening of Records at Sotheby’s

NEW YORK—Yesterday’s sale of contemporary art at Sotheby’s will be remembered as an evening of records—for the overall total of $254,874,000, which is more than a contemporary art sale has ever raised before, and in particular for two quite remarkable prices: Mark Rothko’s White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose), which fetched $72,840,000, more than any contemporary painting has ever raised at auction before; and Francis Bacon’s Study From Innocent X, which went for $52,680,000.

But despite these two monstrous successes, things weren’t altogether plain sailing for Sotheby’s last night. Maybe it’s the arguments raging around those questionable Jackson Pollocks that have turned up out there, but the market for the number one Abstract Expressionist is clearly uneasy. The two Pollocks offered here were bought in. Sotheby’s had high hopes for these—Number 16, 1949 was estimated to fetch $18-25 million, and Rhythmical Dance was expected to raise $12-16 million. (An indication of the market’s current madness, however, is that the former was bought in at what would have been an auction record for Pollock.)

By contrast, Pollock’s contemporary Rothko did even better than expected, as did Bacon. Auction records were also set for John Baldessari, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dan Flavin, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, and Tom Wesselmann.

A newer generation of artists was also part of the record-setting jamboree. Cecily Brown, Glenn Brown, Jim Hodges, David Park, and Daniel Richter all posted record prices. 

But to return briefly to the peculiarly mixed nature of the evening, along with those two Pollocks, Sotheby’s also bought in Gerhard Richter’s Zwei Spanische Akte (Osterakte), again at what would have been an auction record. Overall, then, three of the top six pre-sale estimated prices did not sell.


TOP FIVE PRICES

1. Rothko’s White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) (est. “in excess of $40 million”) did the business for Sotheby’s, fetching $72,840,000—an auction record for a contemporary painting. Rothko’s previous auction record was about $23 million, and Sotheby’s are to be congratulated on the efforts (including a double-page full-color ad in the New York Times) that they put into exciting the market for this undoubtedly beautiful picture. What the depressive suicide painter of “tragedy, ecstasy, and doom” would have made of all this is perhaps a question that I shouldn’t raise.

2. Again the tipsters at Sotheby’s got it right. There aren’t many Bacons of this quality floating around and, in pitching an estimate (“in excess of $30 million”) at higher than the artist’s auction record (less than $28 million) they were really putting down a marker. In the end, it fetched $52,680,000. Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art and last night’s auctioneer, is really skilled at building up the atmosphere when he’s taking bids for super-lots like this. He allows the whole thing to slow way down … bids rise at a million dollars a time … the saleroom holds its collective breath … the gavel comes down … and everyone applauds! No matter who takes the painting home, the market wins.

3. My personal favorite here last night was the classic Rauschenberg combine Photograph. The estimate was $10-15 million. It made $10.68 million. It was well within its estimate and way over Rauschenberg’s auction record ($7.26 million), but given the overachievement of some of the evening’s lots, and the lubricious mood of the current market, we must record this as a slight disappointment for Sotheby’s. Crazy!

4. A really great Basquiat, a fantastic price ($14.6 million), another auction record for the artist, a worthy cause (the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, sold it to establish an art acquisition endowment fund), and no doubt a delighted dealer, collector, and auction house. All’s well in the world. Oh, wait a minute, Basquiat was a speedballing junkie who overdosed himself when he was 27? Maybe that takes the edge off it. Or maybe, more depressingly, it doesn’t.

5. Another auction record for the artist: Wesselmann’s Smoker No. 17, a rather dreamy—and now decidedly anachronistic—image of a beautifully manicured woman’s hand holding a smoking cigarette, made $5,864,000. A classic Wesselman Pop image, bought by an Asian trader.