Sotheby's Impressionist, Modern & Contemporary Art Auctions Total $665.7 Million in NY
Sotheby’s Spring 2013 Sales of
Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art Total
$665.7 Million / £432.5 Million / €510.9 Million
In New York
SEVEN WORKS FETCH MORE THAN $20 MIILLION
THE COLLECTION OF ALEX & ELISABETH LEWYT ACHIEVES
$104.2 MILLION / £67.1 MILLION / €79.4 MILLION
IN THE IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART SALES
CONTEMPORARY ART AUCTIONS FEATURE
WORLD RECORD PRICES FOR NEWMAN AND RICHTER,
ALSO MARKING A RECORD FOR ANY LIVING ARTIST
NEW YORK, 17 May 2013 – Sotheby’s May auctions of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art concluded in New York this week with an impressive total of $665,729,875 (£432,492,551 / €510,942,902), well within their cumulative pre-sale estimate of $553.1/768.8 million* (£359.6/499.8 million / €424.8/590.3 million). Global bidding drove results across the two weeks, with participation from 35 countries in both the Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary evening sales.
Impressionist & Modern Art – 7 & 8 May 2013
Sotheby’s May auctions of Impressionist & Modern Art achieved $288.3 million (£185.7 million / €219.8 million), nearly matching their high estimate of $295.3 million. The sales were led by a selection of 116 works from the Collection of Alex & Elisabeth Lewyt, which brought an impressive $104.2 million (£67.1 million / €79.4 million) and exceeded their high estimate of $93.6 million. The group was led by Paul Cézanne’s Les pommes from 1889-90, which topped the Evening auction with $41,605,000 (£26,778,014 / €31,721,283) (est. $25/35 million). Multiple bidders competed for the piece, as well as for Amedeo Modigliani’s famed portrait L’Amazon,which drove that picture to $25,925,000 (£16,685,976 / €19,766,236) (est. $20/30 million). Property from the Lewyt Collection next will appear in the Contemporary Art Evening Auction at Sotheby’s Paris this June, featuring two important canvases by Nicolas de Staël.
Paysage à La Ciotat, a rare example of Georges Braque’s Fauvist works, set a new auction record for the artist when it sold for $15,845,000 (£10,198,237 / €12,080,849) (est. $10/15 million). The work demonstrates the exceptional performance of top-quality Impressionist and Modern works over the last decade, having last sold in 2000 at Sotheby’s New York for $3 million. Sculpture also proved in demand in the Evening sale: all but one of the 12 examples on offer found buyers, together totaling $39.1 million (£25.2 million / €29.8 million). The selection was led by an exceptional lifetime cast of Auguste Rodin’s Le Penseur from his masterpiece The Gates of Hell, which sold for $15,285,000 (£9,837,807 / €11,653,883) after a prolonged battle in the room (est. $8/12 million).
Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale – 7 May
5 works over $10 million
10 works over $5 million
37 works over $1 million
New Artist Records
Georges Braque
Paysage à La Ciotat
$15,845,000
Honoré Daumier
Les Avocats
$2,629,000
Camille Claudel
La valse
$1,865,000
François Pompon
Ours blanc
$545,000
New Artist Record by Medium
Marc Chagall
Animal dans les fleurs
$4,757,000
Record for a Work on Paper
Contemporary Art – 14 & 15 May 2013
Sotheby’s May auctions of Contemporary Art totaled $377.4 million (£246.8 million / €291.1 million), above a low estimate of $348.9 million. The Evening auction on the 14th offered important works spanning 70 years, and saw strong demand across that impressive range – from early pieces by Pollock and Calder from the 1940s, to works by Currin and Colen made just last year.
Barnett Newman’s Onement VI led the sale, establishing a new auction record for the artist at $43,845,000 (£28,626,926 / €33,751,068) (est. $30/40 million) – this price eclipses Newman’s previous auction record, set in May 2012, by more than $20 million**. Three lots later, Domplatz, Mailand by Gerhard Richter fetched $37,125,000 (£24,239,358 / €28,578,137) (est. $30/40 million), an auction record both for Richter and for any living artist. This result is more than 10 times the then-record price that the monumental, photo-realist canvas commanded at Sotheby’s London 15 years ago.
Both the Evening and Day auctions offered works to benefit the Whitney Museum of American Art’s new building project, donated personally by many of the artists represented as well as by prominent artists’ estates, private collectors and dealers. The group together sold for $19.1 million (£12.5 million / €14.8 million), well in excess of their $12.1 million high estimate.
Contemporary Art Evening Auction – 14 May
7 works over $10 million
13 works over $5 million
46 works over $1 million
New Artist Records
Barnett Newman
Onement VI
$43,845,000
Gerhard Richter
Domplatz, Mailand
$37,125,000
Dan Colen
53rd & 3rd
$1,085,000
Nate Lowman
Black Escalade
$665,000
New Artist Record by Medium
Yves Klein
Sculpture éponge bleue sans titre, SE 168
$22,005,000
Record for a Sculpture
**The previous auction record for Barnett Newman was $22,482,500, set by Onement V in 2012.
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Sotheby’s has been uniting collectors with world-class works of art since 1744. Sotheby’s became the first international auction house when it expanded from London to New York (1955), the first to conduct sales in Hong Kong (1973) and France (2001), and the first international fine art auction house in China (2012). Today, Sotheby’s presents auctions in eight different salesrooms, including New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris, and Sotheby’s BidNow program allows visitors to view all auctions live online and place bids in real-time from anywhere in the world. Sotheby’s offers collectors the resources of Sotheby’s Financial Services, the world’s only full-service art financing company, as well as private sale opportunities in more than 70 categories, including S|2, the gallery arm of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art department, as well as Sotheby’s Diamonds andSotheby’s Wine. Sotheby’s has a global network of 90 offices in 40 countries and is the oldest company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (BID).
*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium and prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer’s premium.
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