Years ago, when I first started covering auctions, Sotheby’s always had the best American art sales. Lots of people didn’t even bother going to Christie’s to look, I recall.
But that changed, and for the last several years, as in most categories, Christie’s has surpassed Sotheby’s in this category, getting the best art and posting the best sales totals. Â Not this week. Thanks to three consignments by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Sotheby’s sale today reached $75.4 million, far exceeding it presale high estimate of $46 million–though that figure does not include the buyer’s premium and the grand total does.
Credit O’Keeffe, whose three works fetched a total of $50.4 million–which will go into the museum’s acquisitions fund. O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, brought $44.4 million, more than three times the previous world auction record for any female artist, and more than seven times the previous auction record for O’Keeffe. Sotheby’s reported:
Seven bidders competed for Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, but it was a prolonged battle between two determined bidders that drove the price to this record height – nearly tripling the work’s high estimate of $15 million. The work is a well-known example of O’Keeffe’s celebrated flower paintings, which in turn stand among the most recognizable images in both art history and popular culture.
The buyer wishes to remain anonymous.
The museum’s other tw0 works On the Old Santa Fe Road, fetched the second-highest price of the day, , nearly $5,1 million against an estimate of $2- to 3 million, and Untitled (Skunk Cabbage) sold for $941,000 against an estimate of $500,000 to $750,000.
Sotheby’s is naturally happy about this. Christie’s American art sale yesterday totaled $46.5 million. The top lot was Norman Rockwell’s Willie Gillis: Hometown News at nearly $4.2 million. But there’s a little catch: the connection to the O’Keeffe Museum is John Marion, Sotheby’s legendary auctioneer, who retired in 1995. His wife, the former Anne Burnett, founded the O’Keeffe museum. Whether Sotheby’s can keep this up without Marion is the key question. But it would be nice to see a return of some razzle dazzle to the American art market.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Sotheby’sÂ