The exceptional Macklowe collection, deemed the most expensive in the world to hit the market, will liven up the fall auctions in New York City, which return to physical sales this week and hungry buyers after the pandemic.
At Christie’s or Sotheby’s, we advance the same speech: the art market is doing very well.
With a total of estimates of more than a billion dollars in a week of sales, from November 15, “we reach our most important season since 2015”, a record year, underlines the president of the Fine Arts department. at Sotheby’s, Brooke Lampley.
“During the pandemic, demand remained strong among buyers, but they no longer saw the level of supply to which they were used,” she told AFP.
According to experts, the global health crisis has not reduced the great fortunes or quenched the appetite of buyers, who are increasingly found in Asia, and who are increasingly young.
For the first half of 2021, where it saw its sales increase by 13% compared to 2019, Christie’s noted that 30% of its buyers were “new customers”, and among them 31% “millennials”.
“People have gotten used to spending a lot more time in their homes, with their artwork,” adds Emily Kaplan, contemporary art specialist at Christie’s, where sales kick off Tuesday.
Divorce at 600 million
In New York, the offer will be there, even if no part exceeds 100 million euros.
Undoubtedly, Sotheby’s won the jackpot, with the Macklowe collection, resulting from the divorce of New York real estate mogul Harry Macklowe and his wife Linda pronounced in 2018, and presented by the company as “the largest collection of” modern and contemporary art never before market ”($ 600 million).
Out of 65 pieces, 35 will go on sale on the same evening on November 15 (the remainder in the spring of 2022), for an estimated value of $ 400 million. The stars are “Le Nez” by Alberto Giacometti, an impressive suspended bronze on which the sculptor had started working in 1947, and “N ° 7”, a minimalist painting by Mark Rothko, each estimated between 70 and 90 million dollars.
The collection also includes the very famous “Nine Marilyns” by Andy Warhol (40-60 million dollars), as well as a “Sixteen Jackies” (15-20 million dollars), but also several works by living artists, like Jeff Koons, Rudolf Stingel, Wade Guyton or Tauba Auerbach.
“There is an incredible demand for contemporary art produced by working artists today,” says Brooke Lampley. At Sotheby’s, the evening of November 18 will also be devoted to sales of works from the last 20 years, with two Banksy each estimated at several million euros.
Digital button
Christie’s also kicks off its season on Tuesday with a “21e century ”, by focusing on safe values, Banksy but especially on a monumental painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat“ Guilt of golden teeth ”, executed in 1982 during one of his stays in Modena (Italy), in full dazzling rise.
The canvas depicting a voodoo figure in a jumble of graffiti and numbers is estimated at between $ 40 million and $ 80 million.
“Human One”, by Beeple, will give a digital touch, now essential, to the evening: a man in a futuristic overalls, like Daft Punk, advances in an evolving natural setting. But beware, the installation has the particularity of being able to be modified remotely by the artist, even once it is installed in the buyer’s living room.
Christie’s will also put on sale Thursday the collection of impressionist works by Texan industrialist Ed Cox, a wealthy donor to the Republican Party who died in 2020.
Degas, Renoir, Monet, Pissaro, Cézanne, Caillebotte, the masters of this movement are most often represented there with one work, except Vincent Van Gogh, with three paintings.
Finally, a record could be broken for a Frida Kahlo at Sotheby’s, with the “Diego y yo” self-portrait ($ 30 million).
The house will also sell an extremely rare original copy of the American Constitution signed on September 17, 1787 in Philadelphia (between $ 15 and $ 20 million).