Christie's New York spring auctions close at a record $1.45bn

A $181.2m Pollock and a $1.45bn week

The Pollock went on the block on the evening of 18 May, the first night of the week. Bidding stalled around $150m before a war among four buyers drove the price to $181,185,000 in about seven minutes, Fortune reported.

That single lot set the tone for nine sales. The back-to-back Masterpieces: The Private Collection of S.I. Newhouse and the 20th Century Evening Sale together realised $1,121,126,500, selling 97% by lot and 99% by value, according to Christie's. It was only the second single night of auctions in history to pass $1bn. Christie's called Number 7A, 1948 the largest of Pollock's drip paintings still in private hands.

For anyone holding a major postwar or modern work, the reference prices moved inside seven days: Pollock, Brancusi, Rothko and Miro all reset. For buyers, the news is where the supply comes from: a great number of pieces in the recent blockbuster Christie's auctions came from estate sales, Fortune reported.

The previous auction record for a Pollock was $61.2m, for Number 17, 1951, sold in 2021. The new price nearly tripled it.

The estimates were left behind

The two evening sales landed at the high side of combined pre-sale expectations of $823m to $1bn, with estimates excluding fees. The 20th Century Evening Sale alone took $490.3m, selling 96% by lot and 99% by value.

The day sales did not fall away. The Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale made $102,854,700, the highest total in seven years, selling 93% by lot and 96% by value.

The Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper sale and the Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale together achieved $62,975,806 and set two artist records. Defined Space: The Collection of Henry S. McNeil, Jr. and Marian's Richters & 21st Century Evening Sale cumulatively achieved $162,698,350, selling 98% by lot and 98% by value. The week closed with two online sales, Picasso Ceramics and Breaking Ground: The Private Collection of Marian Goodman Part I. Together they made $3,909,568 and sold 100% by lot.

Records reset across the board

Constantin Brancusi's Danaide sold for $107,585,000, against a previous Brancusi auction record of $71.2m set in 2018. It is the second highest price paid for a sculpture at auction, behind Alberto Giacometti's Pointing Man at $141.3m at Christie's New York in May 2015. Newhouse had bought Danaide at Christie's in May 2002 for a then record $18.1m with fees.

Mark Rothko's No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe) made $98.4m, beating the $86.9m Rothko record from 2012, Agence France-Presse reported. Joan Miro's Portrait de Madame K took $53.5m, against a previous Miro record of $37m, also set in 2012.

Christie's also lists new artist records for Josef Albers, Alice Neel, El Lissitzky, Bridget Tichenor and Somaya Critchlow. It reports medium records for Henri Matisse, Donald Judd, Aleksandr Rodchenko and Remedios Varo. According to ARTnews, the Pollock is now the fourth most expensive artwork sold at auction, and it shot far beyond its $100m estimate. The top of that list is unchanged: Salvator Mundi, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, at $450m in 2017, Agence France-Presse reported.

Estates are doing the selling

Masterpieces: The Private Collection of S.I. Newhouse totalled $630,825,000, selling 100% by lot and 100% by value. With three earlier Newhouse sales at Christie's in 2018, 2019 and 2023, the collection has reached a cumulative $1.05bn, the second collection after Paul Allen's to pass $1bn.

The Newhouse evening sale was entirely backed by third-party guarantees. Fortune ties the flow of estate material to the Great Wealth Transfer: an estimated $84 trillion in assets passing to heirs by 2045, or as much as $124 trillion by 2048.

In the various-owners segment, 30 of the 47 lots offered were covered by house or third-party guarantees, The Art Newspaper reported. The Rothko came from the collection of Agnes Gund, a former president of New York's Museum of Modern Art who died last year, Fortune reported; her collection realised $150.8m, Christie's said. A 10-day exhibition before the sales drew nearly 20,000 visitors, a record for a preview at Christie's Rockefeller Center.

The money behind the bidding

Christie's took in $2bn that week including sales outside the US, 50% more than the previous year, Fortune reported. A UBS report in December estimated global art sales rose 4% year on year to $59.6bn, returning to growth after two years of decline. The New York spring series is Christie's most important event of the year and can generate between 10% and 20% of annual sales, according to Fortune.

"So much of our success depends on the supply that we have to sell. A lot of that comes from the wealth transfer we know is taking place. A lot of the great collectors of our generation have sadly passed on and therefore we are seeing those collections come to market." Christie's CEO Bonnie Brennan, to Fortune.

Max Carter, Christie's global chairman of 20th and 21st century art, said the $1.1bn night showed "the market embraced this historic opportunity".

The comparison point is Sotheby's November sale of Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer. Fortune put it at $236.3m and ARTnews at $236.4m, a record for a modern work at auction.

What the week does not settle is who is buying. The buyer of the Pollock has not been identified, and Christie's has not named the telephone bidders behind the Brancusi and the Rothko.