[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/JACKSON-POLLOCK-Number-7A-1948.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tA Jackson Pollock painting formerly owned by media magnate S. I. Newhouse, once one of the world\u2019s most formidable art collectors, sold at Christie\u2019s on Monday night for a hammer price of $157 million, breaking the Abstract Expressionist artist\u2019s auction record. With fees, the total was brought to $181.2 million.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat number officially makes the Pollock one of the most expensive artworks ever auctioned.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe work started with a $82 million bid and recieved over 60 bids, from bidders represented by three specialists as well as two bidders in the room. The winning bid of $157 million, which came after a spirited 10 minute bidding war that saw auctioneer Adrien Meyer counting up the bids in $1 million increments barely above a whisper, went to a buyer represented by Christie\u2019s global president Alex Rotter. <\/p>\n
\n\tOne of the underbidders, per Julie Brener Davich, reporting in the room for ARTnews<\/em>, was Swiss mega-dealer Iwan Wirth, perhaps for mega-collector Laurene Powell Jobs. No word, however, on who Rotter was bidding for.<\/p>\n Number 7A<\/em>, a large-scale drip painting dating to 1948, carried a $100 million estimate upon request going into the sale, placing it well above the artist\u2019s previous highs. In 2021, the 1951 painting Number 17, 1951<\/em> sold at Sotheby\u2019s New York for $61 million, just under double its high estimate. The work at Christie\u2019s is considerably larger than Number 17<\/em>, measuring nearly 11 feet long compared to Number 17<\/em>\u2019s square dimension, just under 5 feet. Both works were oil and enamel on canvas, marked primarily by black paint.<\/p>\n \n\tThe next three results for Pollock are $58 million for Number 19<\/em>, achieved in 2013; $55.4 million for Composition with Red Strokes<\/em> in 2018; and $54 million for Number 31<\/em> in 2022, all set at Christie\u2019s New York.<\/p>\n \n\tAside from its size, which Christie\u2019s claims is the largest drip painting still in private hands, Number 7A<\/em> stands out for its exceptional provenance, having come from the collection of the late Newhouse and his wife Victoria, who both regularly appeared on ARTnews<\/em> Top 200 collector list. They were reputed to have spent as much as $700 million on their art holdings. Newhouse died in 2017, and his family tapped art adviser Tobias Meyer, previously principal auctioneer at Sotheby\u2019s, to help decide its fate, according to the New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tIn a statement announcing the sale at Christie\u2019s, Meyer touted Newhouse as the most discerning of collectors, calling him \u201cfearless in editing his collection. He owned the most important paintings by the most important artists, selling at times, buying things back at others, over many years of study and rigor putting together a collection without parallel,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n \n\tPrior to Newhouse, the painting was originally owned by photographer Herber Matter, who was gifted the work by Pollock. It then passed to collectors Kimiko and John Powers, before selling to Newhouse. It was last seen by the public in 1977 at the Whitney Museum.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/market\/s-i-newhouse-jackson-pollock-sell-christies-record-breaking-1234785975\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/JACKSON-POLLOCK-Number-7A-1948.jpg?w=1024″] A Jackson Pollock painting formerly owned by media magnate S. I. Newhouse, once one of the world\u2019s most formidable art collectors, sold at Christie\u2019s on Monday night for a hammer price of $157 million, breaking the Abstract Expressionist artist\u2019s auction record. With fees, the total was brought to $181.2 million. That number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1942343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1942343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1942343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1942343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1942343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}