Christie’s New York auctions total $506.6 million, Rousseau sets record

Christie’s New York evening sales on May 11-12, 2023, achieved a combined total of $506,571,600 across two sessions: the S.I. Newhouse Collection and the Twentieth Century Evening Sale. The Newhouse session, featuring 16 lots from the collection of the Condé Nast magnate, sold all works for $177,792,000, exceeding the $150 million estimate and becoming the sixth-highest total for a single-owner collection. Highlights included Francis Bacon’s Self-Portrait (1969) at $34,622,500 and Willem de Kooning’s Orestes (1947) at $30,885,000. The Twentieth Century Evening Sale, comprising 56 lots, reached $328,779,600. Top lot was Henri Rousseau’s Les Flamants at $43,535,000, a new auction record for the artist, far surpassing his previous record of $4.4 million from 1993. Other notable results: Pablo Picasso’s Nature morte à la fenêtre at $41,810,000, Ed Ruscha’s Burning Gas Station from the Alan and Dorothy Press Collection at $22,260,000, Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Iris VI from the Paul G. Allen collection at $21,110,000, and David Hockney’s Early Blossom, Woldgate at $19,385,000. Records were also set for Ken Price ($554,400) and Agnes Pelton ($3,438,000). The sale room at Rockefeller Plaza was attended by prominent dealers Larry Gagosian, Jeffrey Deitch, David Mugrabi, Joe Nahmad, and Dominique Lévy. Christie’s next sale is the 21st Century Evening Sale on May 15.