Carrington, Mitchell, O'Keeffe works to lead New York May 2024 auctions

Three female artists—Leonora Carrington, Joan Mitchell, and Georgia O'Keeffe—are set to dominate Christie's and Sotheby's May 2024 sales in New York, with combined low estimates of around $60 million for six works. Sotheby's offers a Carrington painting and four Mitchell pieces, while Christie's presents a 1920s O'Keeffe canvas. Mitchell's four works from a single collection carry aggregate estimates of $36 million, including 'Ground' (1989) at $12 million, a 1973 work at $1 million, a 1955 piece at $8 million, and 'Noon' (1969) at $15 million. Both auction houses sold Mitchell works for $27–29 million last November, following her 2021–2022 retrospective at SFMOMA, Baltimore Museum of Art, and Fondation Louis Vuitton. Carrington's 'Les Distractions de Dagobert' (1945), bought in 1995 for $475,000, is estimated at $12 million—nearly four times her current auction record of $3.25 million—appearing at Sotheby's Modern Evening Auction on May 15. Christie's offers O'Keeffe's 'Red Poppy' (1928) at its 20th Century Evening Sale on May 16 with a $10 million estimate, a close-up of a poppy like her top auction results. The work is the last in a series of six poppy paintings; two similar ones are in museum collections. O'Keeffe's 'White Rose With Larkspur No. 1' (1927) sold for $26 million and 'Black Iris IV' (1936) for $21 million last May from the Paul Allen Collection.