{"id":1943527,"date":"2026-05-19T05:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T02:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1943527"},"modified":"2026-05-19T05:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T02:17:13","slug":"christies-double-header-totals-1-1-b-with-records-for-pollock-rothko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1943527","title":{"rendered":"Christie’s Double-Header Totals $1.1 B., With Records for Pollock, Rothko"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Auctioneer-Adrien-Meyer-sells-Jackson-Pollocks-Number-7A-1948-the-top-lot-of-Masterpieces-The-Private-Collection-of-S.I.-Newhouse-for-181.2-million-2.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\tMost of the headlines from Christie\u2019s blockbuster evening sales of the S.I. Newhouse collection and 20th-century art on Monday will likely focus on the 8- and 9-figure prices: the $181.2 million Pollock, the $107.6 million Br\u00e2ncu\u0219i, and the $98.4 million Rothko. Those are mind-blowing sums, to be sure, but those works were always going to do well. The sale actually revealed more about the market below $20 million, which experienced a depth of bidding that has been missing from the highly choreographed and overestimated auctions of recent years.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe double-header, which generated $1.1 billion across 64 lots, demonstrated the growing strength of the US art-buying public, especially in the western region, as evidenced by Christie\u2019s representatives bidding on the phones. By comparison, European and Asian representatives barely got into the action, and only at the lower price points. As always, works fresh to the market outperformed those that have been passed around in recent years.<\/p>\n

(All prices include buyer\u2019s premium unless otherwise noted.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\tThe evening kicked off with the 16-lot sale of works from the collection of the late media mogul S.I. Newhouse Jr., known as \u201cSi,\u201d who helmed Cond\u00e9 Nast from 1975 to 2015. He worked closely with former Sotheby\u2019s rainmaker Tobias Meyer to form the collection over several decades, repeatedly trading out works to acquire better examples, resulting in one of the finest troves ever assembled. Newhouse and his wife Victoria, who both appeared regularly on ARTnews<\/em>\u2019 Top 200 Collectors list, were reputed to have spent as much as $700 million on their collection.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis Newhouse tranche is the fourth that Meyer has brought to auction at Christie\u2019s on behalf of the family. The sale made $630.8 million, against an estimate of $462 million without fees, bringing the cumulative tally of the collection to just over $1 billion, after three previous sales in 2018, 2019, and 2023 totaled $415.7 million. That makes it likely the most expensive collection ever sold at auction after the late Paul Allen\u2019s $1.7 billion blockbuster in 2022. Though, of course, that total was generated almost completely in just one sales season.<\/p>\n

\n\tChristie\u2019s 20th-century evening sale also exceeded expectations, totaling $490.3 million, against an estimate of $361.6 million without fees. (An Amadeo Modigliani portrait estimated at $30 million was withdrawn at the last possible moment.) The sale featured property from the estates of philanthropist Marilyn Arison of the Carnival Cruise Line Arisons, Lorinda de Roulet Payson, daughter of New York Mets founder Joan Whitney Payson, and revered arts philanthropist Agnes Gund, among several others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe top lot of the night was Jackson Pollock\u2019s Number 7A, 1948<\/em>, from the Newhouse collection, which, at $181.2 million, became the fourth most expensive painting ever sold at auction. Conservatively estimated at $100 million, the 11-foot-wide canvas drew 60 bids over 10 minutes, with no fewer than five bidders in the mix.<\/p>\n

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Constantin Br\u00e2ncu\u0219i, Dana\u00efde<\/em>, ca. 1913.<\/span>Christie\u2019s Images Ltd. 2026<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tChristie\u2019s global president Alex Rotter ping-ponged bids up to $152 million with dealer Iwan Wirth in the room, who was presumably representing Laurene Powell Jobs. The pace was so brisk that auctioneer Adrien Meyer was practically rattling off $1 million increments like he was counting time. Then Christie\u2019s head of postwar and contemporary art Ana Maria Celis, who hails from Venezuela, jumped into the fray, and she and Rotter volleyed until he placed the winning hammer bid of $157 million. The buyer of the Pollock also purchased the previous lot, Henri Matisse\u2019s Robe noire et robe violette<\/em>, 1938, for $34.6 million against an estimate of $30 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tNewhouse acquired the Pollock in 2000 for an undisclosed sum from then-Sotheby\u2019s owner Alfred Taubman, who was facing hefty legal fees from his price-fixing scandal. The previous record for the artist was $61.2 million for a smaller black drip painting on raw canvas from the Macklowe collection at Sotheby\u2019s in 2021, also once owned by Newhouse.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll 16 works in the Newhouse sale carried irrevocable bids, meaning they were pre-sold to guarantors who agreed to buy the work for a minimum sum. In return, they received a percentage of the buyer\u2019s premium if the work sold above that price.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe second-highest price in the Newhouse collection was $107.6 million for Constantin Br\u00e2ncu\u0219i\u2019s gilt-bronze bust Dana\u00efde<\/em>, which sold on just one bid to the guarantor against an unpublished estimate of $100 million. This makes it the second most expensive sculpture ever sold at auction after Alberto Giacometti\u2019s $141 million Pointing Man<\/em>. Newhouse bought the bust in 2002 at Christie\u2019s for a then-record $18.2 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother highlight of the night was Joan Mir\u00f3\u2019s Portrait de Madame K.<\/em>, 1924, which sold for an artist record of $53.5 million against an estimate of $25 million. (The artist\u2019s previous record was $37 million, set at Sotheby\u2019s in 2012.) Newhouse acquired the painting in 2001 at Christie\u2019s from the collection of Ren\u00e9 Gaff\u00e9 for $12.7 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut not all the works in the Newhouse collection were a slam dunk. Robert Rauschenberg\u2019s 1955 combine Levee<\/em> barely squeaked past its estimate of $7 million to make $7.2 million. Jasper Johns\u2019s Figure 2<\/em>, 1955, and Alley Oop<\/em>, 1958, both sold below their estimates of $10 million and $6 million, respectively, as did Roy Lichtenstein\u2019s Voodoo Lily<\/em>, 1961, estimated at $6 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe top lot of the 20th-century sale was the monumental Mark Rothko painting that Gund bought directly from his studio in 1967 and gave pride of place in her living room for nearly six decades. It sold for a record $98.4 million against an unpublished estimate of $80 million. Three bidders competed for the work, with Christie\u2019s managing director in San Francisco Kathryn Lasater jumping in at $74 million and volleying with senior postwar and contemporary art specialist Rachael White Young, who is known to work with clients in Texas. Young\u2019s client won the painting at a hammer price of $85 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother work from the Gund collection, Joseph Cornell\u2019s Untitled (Medici Princess)<\/em>, ca.<\/em> 1948, more than doubled its estimate to sell for $6.9 million. Comparatively, the artist\u2019s Untitled (Medici series, Pinturicchio Boy), ca. <\/em>1950, failed to find a buyer at an estimate of $3 million. Itlast sold at Sotheby\u2019s in 2017 for $4.2 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe market for great examples of historic material is just so strong,\u201d Evan Beard of Evan Beard & Co. told ARTnews<\/em> after the sale. \u201cAn example tonight were the two Cornell boxes: the great Princess soars and the slightly lesser Prince passes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Alice Neel, Mother and Child (Nancy and Olivia)<\/em>, 1982.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tAnother example that Beard cited was Alice Neel\u2019s Mother and Child (Nancy and Olivia)<\/em>, 1967, depicting her daughter-in-law and first grandchild. Conservatively estimated at $1.2 million, it sold for $5.7 million, smashing the artist record of $3 million set at Christie\u2019s in 2021. Christie\u2019s co-head of the sale Emily Kaplan won it after a bidding war with Los Angeles managing director Sonya Roth.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe work had been in the same collection since 1984 and was featured in the 2021-2022\u00a0 touring exhibition \u201cAlice Neel: People Come First\u201d at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Guggenheim in Bilbao, and de Young Museum in San Francisco. Beard described it as a \u201cquintessential\u201d example by the artist, compared to the 1971 portrait, Timothy Collins<\/em>, that was withdrawn from Sotheby\u2019s evening sale last week at an estimate of $1.5 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tClassic Impressionism performed surprisingly well. Among the runaway successes of the night in that category was Claude Monet\u2019s Pommiers, V\u00e9theuil<\/em>, 1878, which once belonged to Gustave Caillebotte and had been in the same Illinois collection since 1969. It more than tripled its estimate to sell for $19.6 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAdvisor Ralph DeLuca, who works in both New York and Las Vegas, won at least four works on behalf of three clients for relative bargains: Mir\u00f3\u2019s Portrait de Ramon Sunyer (L\u2019Orf\u00e8vre)<\/em>, 1918, for $9.2 million; Ren\u00e9 Magritte\u2019s L\u2019Embellie<\/em>, 1941, for $6.8 million; and Picasso\u2019s Baigneuse au pouf rouge<\/em>, 1930, for $2.6 million, and Deux femmes<\/em>, 1930.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCollectors have a lot of capital to play with,\u201d summed up Beard in a text to ARTnews<\/em>. \u201cThey\u2019ve psychologically adjusted to higher interest rates. The stock market is at record highs and feeling frothy, and the art market has reset to more inviting levels the past few years. The bullish art market is back (but not for young, emerging artists).\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/market\/christies-20th-century-evening-newhouse-sales-results-1234786060\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Auctioneer-Adrien-Meyer-sells-Jackson-Pollocks-Number-7A-1948-the-top-lot-of-Masterpieces-The-Private-Collection-of-S.I.-Newhouse-for-181.2-million-2.jpg?w=1024″] Most of the headlines from Christie\u2019s blockbuster evening sales of the S.I. Newhouse collection and 20th-century art on Monday will likely focus on the 8- and 9-figure prices: the $181.2 million Pollock, the $107.6 million Br\u00e2ncu\u0219i, and the $98.4 million Rothko. Those are mind-blowing sums, to be sure, but those works were […]<\/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-1943527","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\/1943527","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=1943527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1943527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1943527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1943527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}