Christina Quarles Shatters Auction Record at Sotheby's

Christina Quarles, born in Chicago in 1985, achieved a new auction record at Sotheby's The Now sale on May 19 in New York. Her painting Night Fell Upon Us (Up On Us) (2019) sold for $4.5 million, far exceeding its estimate of $600,000–800,000 and demolishing her previous record of $686,000. The work depicts an intertwined couple under the moon, exploring complexities of the body, identity, race, gender, and sexuality through digital manipulations and stencil fragments. The sale was part of a broader trend of strong results for young female artists, with aggregate sales reaching $28 million. Anna Weyant's Falling Woman (2020) sold for $1.6 million against a $150,000 estimate, and other artists like Simone Leigh, Avery Singer, Jennifer Packer, and Lucy Bull also set records. Quarles was selected by Cecilia Alemani for the 2022 Venice Biennale exhibition The Milk of Dreams. Her work is held in major public collections including Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim Museum, Hirshhorn Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, South London Gallery, X Museum Beijing, and Tate Modern. A Guardian article by Mary Ann Sieghart on August 2 highlighted the persistent gender gap in art pricing, noting male artists' prices are ten times higher, though change is slowly occurring at venues like the Venice Biennale and auctions.