21ST CENTURY EVENING SALE TOTALS $98,802,500
New York – Christie’s continued its 20th and 21st Century Spring Marquee Week auctions with the 21st Century Evening Sale. The 26-lot sale saw spirited bidding globally, with 44% of bidders from America, 28% from APAC and 28% from EMEA. The evening’s total was $98,802,500 selling 96% by lot, and 123% hammer against low estimate. Combined with the successful sale of the S.I. Newhouse Collection and the 20th Century Evening Sale on May 11 and the series of Day Sales May 12 – 13, this auction brought Christie’s running total for the week to $725,013,196.
The top lot of the evening was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile), selling for $67,110,000 after almost five minutes of competitive bidding. Excitingly, more than one third of the lots in the sale set artist records; five were set for female artists – Robin F. Williams, Simone Leigh, Danielle McKinney, Rebecca Ackroyd, and Diane Arbus – as well as records for Vojtěch Kovařík, El Anatsui, Peter Saul, and William Eggleston (for a single work).
Isabella Lauria, Head of the 21st Century Eveing Sale, said, “Christie’s is thrilled to have achieved a fantastic result in the first-ever evening sale that was majority female. That’s no accident. It’s our goal to present the full richness and diversity of Contemporary Art, from our outstanding result for Jean-Michel Basquiat's history painting, El Gran Espetaculo, to El Anatsui's installation, Prophet, to women artists at all stages of their careers. This evening we saw records fall for younger artists like Danielle McKinney, mid-career artists like Simone Leigh, and legends like Diane Arbus.”
Spring Marquee Week Sales continue Wednesday, May 17 with A Century of Art: The Gerald Fineberg Collection Part I beginning live at 7PM.
