Christie's Enlists Nicole Kidman to Sell S.I. Newhouse's $100 Million Brancusi

Christie's has released a promotional film featuring actress Nicole Kidman to promote the auction of Constantin Brancusi's bronze sculpture Danaïde (1913) from the collection of late media mogul S.I. Newhouse. The sculpture carries an estimate of $100 million, potentially a record for a sculpture, and will be offered on May 18 in New York. Newhouse purchased the work for $18.2 million in 2002, then the highest price for a sculpture. The nearly two-minute black-and-white ad, directed by former Sotheby's auctioneer Tobias Meyer, shows Kidman interacting with the piece at Christie's Rockefeller Center headquarters, set to David Bowie's "Golden Years." Meyer, who has advised Newhouse's estate since his death in 2017, conceived the campaign after seeing footage of model Lee Miller with a Brancusi sculpture at the Centre Pompidou. He recruited Kidman through Christie's owner François Pinault, an investor in Creative Artists Agency. Kidman filmed the ad in early May; Christie's declined to disclose payment. The ad follows a recent visit by King Charles III and Queen Camilla to Christie's on April 29.