Sotheby’s unprecedented November auction of works from the collection of divorcées Harry and Linda Macklowe hit the mark on all three counts, providing some of the rarest treasures the market had seen in years.
The incredible amount of wealth that has been created over the course of the past two years was on full display in auction salesrooms. In 2020, just two of the top 10 lots fetched prices above $50 million each.
It comes from a group of 33 canvases known as the “Black Pourings” or “Black Paintings” unveiled in 1951, immediately after Pollock debuted the all-over multicolored compositions for which he is best known.
Why: This meticulously painted rare scroll became one of the most expensive Chinese artworks ever to sell at auction.
The detailed artwork begins at Beijing’s Zhengyangmen Gate and passes through Tiananmen Square before ending at the entrance to the Forbidden City, where the artwork was once mounted, according to the auction house.
Sure, $69.3 million is a lot of money.
It has been shown all over the United States, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and was last seen at auction at Sotheby’s in 2004, when it fetched $16.8 million.
Why: For all the conversation about changing taste , the performance of the collection assembled by the late Texas oil magnate Edwin Lochridge Cox proved there is still ample appetite for Impressionist masterworks, provided they are high quality and by brand names.
Praising it as one of Giacometti’s “most essential and far-reaching sculptures,” Sun noted in a tweet that the haunting post-World War II sculpture of a bronze head with an extremely long, pointy nose was the cover of Sotheby’s catalogue for the Macklowe sale.
Why: Rothko’s market has deflated in recent years with few stellar examples by the Abstract Expressionist coming to auction and new money becoming more engaged with young artists and new media.
Anonymously consigned by the real-estate billionaire Sheldon Solow shortly before his death in November 2020, the work had spent decades on loan at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Why: 2021 was the year of Basquiat, whose name is recognized worldwide and whose works totaled $414.5 million at auction in the first 11 months of the year, second only to Pablo Picasso.