Christie’s Contemporary “Gets It Right”

Alexander Calder Willem de Kooning Roy Lichtenstein Claes Oldenburg Jean-Michel Basquiat David Hockney Richard Diebenkorn Martin Kippenberger

Send a letter to the Editor

Save to Del.icio.us Digg this

Forty-nine of the 54 lots sold, for a sizzling sale rate of 91 percent by lot and 94 percent by value.

The encouraging result compares with the $113.6 million achieved at Christie's evening sale last November, with a sale rate of 68 percent by lot, and the monster $331.4 million tally and 95 percent sold rate realized in May 2008.

Of the 49 sold works, 30 brought in more than $1 million, and of those, nine went for more than $3 million.

Five artist records were set, including one for David Hockney’s Beverly Hills Housewife (1966–67), which sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for $7,922,500 (est. $6–10 million). The sweeping diptych hailed from the estate of California collector and art patron Betty Freeman, who acquired the painting for $4,250 in 1967, when it was first shown in New York at the Landau-Alan Gallery.

The sale included 20 works from the Freeman collection, and apart from a single casualty, they excelled, accounting for $31.6 million of the overall total, compared with pre-sale expectations of $24–37 million.

Hockney’s ode to California dreaming hurdled the artist record set at Sotheby’s London in June 2006, when Splash (1966) made £2,929,000 ($5,389,000).

Other Freeman highlights included the sale’s cover lot, Roy Lichtenstein’s beach-scene composition Frolic (1977), which sold to dealer Larry Gagosian for $6,018,500 (est. $4–6 million). New York private dealer Nancy Whyte was one of the underbidders.

Freeman acquired the painting in 1981 from New York’s James Goodman Gallery for $125,000, Goodman himself said.

A jumbo-scaled and brilliantly executed Andy Warhol Portrait of Man Ray (1974), also from Freeman, went relatively cheaply for $2,098,500 (est. $2–4 million). Dealer Jose Mugrabi was the underbidder. It last sold at auction at Sotheby’s New York in May 1985 for $52,800.

Another Freeman Pop art achiever was Claes Oldenburg’s old-fashioned Typewriter Eraser (1976) in painted aluminum, stainless steel, ferroconcrete, and bronze, which sold for a record $2,210,500 (est. $1.4–1.8 million) to Jonathan Binstock of Citi Private Bank Art Advisory Service.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to acquire an iconographic example of Oldenburg’s classic sculpture of the 1970s,” Binstock said after the surprisingly buoyant sale.

Sculpture excelled even beyond the frontier of Pop art and Freeman’s trove, as blue-chip champ Alexander Calder’s untitled wall relief in painted and unpainted wood and wire, circa 1943, sold to a telephone bidder for $2,826,500 (est. $1.2–1.8 million).

For the most part, whatever was fresh to the market, classic, and conservative sold like home safes, including Richard Diebenkorn’s emblematic and shimmering Ocean Park No. 117 from 1979, which sold to another anonymous telephone bidder for $6,578,500 (est. $4–6 million).

In that same rich vein, Willem de Kooning’s Woman (1953), in oil, charcoal, wax crayon, and graphite on paper laid down on canvas, consigned by the heirs of New York collector Evelyn Annenberg Hall, sold to the telephone for a rousing $3,666,500 (est. $1.4–1.8 million).

Elevating the sale another few notches were glimmers of action beyond the tried and true blue chippers, as the heavily invested-in and speculated-upon artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Peter Doig hit home runs.

Basquiat’s Mater (1982), a tribal tribute to his art-loving mother, sold to Todd Levin of Levin Art Group for $5,850,500 (est. $5–7 million), and Doig’s atmospheric Night Fishing (1993) sold to Victoria Gelfand of Gagosian Gallery for $4,674,500 (est. $3–4 million).

“It’s the signature Doig,” said Gelfand, moments after the sale, “and my client ended up getting it for a decent price.”