Dodging the disaster: Modern and Contemporary art at Sotheby’s

Highlights of the modern and contemporary art auctions at Sotheby’s New York, November 2022, led by a monumental Warhol painting that fetched $85.4 million.

By G. Fernández – theartwolf.com – Texts referring to the auction preview written on 28 and 29 October 2022 – Updated on November 16 and 17, 2022

Image: “Composition III” (1930) by Piet Mondrian and “White Disaster [White Car Crash 19 Times]” (1963) by Andy Warhol (© Andy Warhol / ARS New York)

In principle, November 2022 should not be a pleasant month for Sotheby’s, seeing as all the spotlight is on Christie’s, its great rival, which is organising the historic auction of Paul Allen’s collection. However, Sotheby’s has managed to put together a very interesting selection of modern and contemporary art -including a highly important “Disaster” by Warhol and a Composition by Mondrian- with which -presumably- it can, to some extent, keep up the pace with its great rival in the auction world. In total, the 3 auctions achieved a total of $660 million, which rises to $706 million if we include “The Now Evening Auction”, dedicated to the art of the last decades.

The David M. Solinger Collection

The first -chronologically- of Sotheby’s three major auctions is that of the collection of David M. Solinger, lawyer, collector and once president of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Although unlike the other two auctions it does not include any “superstar” lots, it is a very interesting selection of modern and contemporary art, whose pieces share two characteristics generally highly appreciated by the art market: 1) they come from the collection of a highly respected collector, and 2) they have not been on the market for many decades. The auction achieved a total of $137.9 million.

Willem de Kooning, “Collage”, 1950 © Willem de Kooning / ARS New York

“Collage” may not be the most valuable painting by Willem De Kooning to be auctioned this November (both Christie’s and Sotheby’s offer works with much higher presale estimates), but in my opinion it is the most interesting of them all. Painted in 1950, “Collage” (pre-sale estimate: $18 million – $25 million) belongs to the most interesting period of the artist’s production (from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s), and in it we can already see the energy that would lead De Kooning to create some of his most famous abstract works, such as “Interchange” or “Police Gazette“. In the online catalogue of the work, Sotheby’s presents a short list of “comparable masterpieces in museum collections”, which includes, rather ambitiously, the monumental “Excavation” from the Art Institute of Chicago. More realistically, a good comparison -and a hopeful precedent for this auction- is the sale of “Sail Cloth” (1949) for $13.1 million in 2005, a remarkable price for a post-war work of art sold before the boom that began in 2006. Quite fairly, the painting achieved a result above Sotheby’s expectations, fetching $33.6 million.

“Femme, étoiles” (1945) is a painting by Joan Miró that immediately recalls the artist’s “Constellations” series (produced between 1940 and 1941), although it is larger in size and less intense in composition than the paintings that make up that series. It has a pre-sale estimate of $15-20 million, the same as “Femme dans un fauteuil” -painted in 1927 by Pablo Picasso in his particular surrealist style- and “Trois hommes qui marchent (grand plateau)”, a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti conceived in 1948, created in 1952, and acquired the same year by David M. Solinger. Giacometti’s sculpture fetched $30.2 million. “Femme, étoiles” was sold for $17.8 million, and “Femme dans un fauteuil” was one of the few disappointments of the auction, fetching just $10 million.

In addition to this “poker” of outstanding works, several paintings with more modest estimates deserve to be highlighted. Among them, “Peinture 92 x 65 cm. 7 février 1954” is an abstraction from the most interesting period of the career of the recently deceased Pierre Soulages, which could exceed its pre-sale estimate of between $800,000 and $1,200,000. “Landschaft mit dem Galgen” is a very good oil painting by Paul Klee, painted in 1919, which has a pre-sale estimate of between $1.5 million to $2 million. Indeed, Soulages’ painting doubled its most optimistic pre-sale estimate, fetching $2.5 million, while “Landschaft mit dem Galgen” also exceeded expectations, fetching $2.35 million.

Modern Art Evening Auction

Immediately after the auction of the David M. Solinger Collection, the modern art auction will be led by Piet Mondrian‘s “Composition No. III“, which carries an estimate “in excess of $50 million“, which could set a new auction record for the artist. Interestingly, the current record is held by a painting of the same title -although painted a year before- sold for $50.6 million at Christie’s in May 2015. In terms of date, scale and composition, comparison between the two paintings is inevitable, and it is impossible to establish an objective verdict as to which is more valuable or important. More recently, last year Christie’s auctioned another “Composition No. II” (1927) for just over $26 million, although in this case it was a painting somewhat smaller in scale and less complex in composition. The painting sold for $51 million, narrowly meeting Sotheby’s prediction, but still the star of the auction, which fetched a total of $253.3 million.

Painted in 1919, “Guitare sur une table” is a fine late-Cubist painting by Pablo Picasso, which has an “unofficial” estimate of between $20 million and $30 million. It comes from the collection of William S. Paley, and the proceeds of the sale will go to MoMA and other charities. “Reclining Figure: Festival” is a monumental sculpture by Henry Moore that, according to some sources, could fetch more than $30 million. Two versions of this work currently hold the two highest prices achieved by Moore at auction: in 2016, Christie’s auctioned one version for £24.7 million, surpassing the £19.1 million achieved by another version in 2012. “Guitare sur une table” sold for $37.1 million, while Moore’s sculpture fetched $31 million.

“Drame au village, Pont-Aven” (1894) is one of Paul Gauguin‘s finest “non-tropical” paintings to come on the market in recent years, a proto-Fauvist tour-de-force with a pre-sale estimate of between $8 million and $12 million. Unusually for this type of auction, two interesting landscapes representing two very different sides of 20th century American realism have been included: “Fire in the Barnyard” (1944) by Thomas Hart Benton (estimate: $4 million to $6 million, which could be a new auction record for the artist) and “The Wake” (1964) by Andrew Wyeth (estimate: $2.5 million to $3.5 million). “Drame au village, Pont-Aven” was sold for $9.1 million. Congratulations to the buyer, who gets an excellent painting by one of the post-impressionist geniuses for less than $10 million. “Fire in the Barnyard” fetched $4.9 million, and “The Wake” fetched $4.35 million.

Contemporary Art Evening Auction

Andy Warhol, “White Disaster [White Car Crash 19 Times]” (1963) (© Andy Warhol / ARS New York)

Sotheby’s blockbuster for November, the work that should try to compete -as far as possible- with the paintings in the Allen collection with which Christie’s wishes to make history, is Andy Warhol‘s “White Disaster [White Car Crash 19 Times]” (1963), a monumental work (367.7 x 210.5 cm.) from his “Death and Disaster” series that has an unpublished pre-sale estimate, but which various sources put at over $80 million. As expected, Sotheby’s online catalogue devotes a lengthy and laudatory text to the work, defining it as “a monumental altarpiece for the modern age”, and including images of works such as Titian’s “Assumption of the Virgin” and Picasso’s “Guernica“.

 “White Disaster [White Car Crash 19 Times]” was auctioned for $660,000 in 1987, which was then a record for a work by the artist. For reference, six months before that sale, ‘200 One Hundred Dollar Bills’ sold for $385,000, and was resold in 2009 for $43.8 million. More recently, several works from Warhol’s “Death and Disaster” series have fetched very notable prices on the market, the most famous cases being “Silver Car Crash“, sold for $105.4 million (a record for Warhol at auction) in November 2013; and “Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I)“, sold for $71.7 million in 2007, then also a record for Warhol. With this in mind, Sotheby’s estimate seems reasonable, and even conservative. The painting was sold for $85.4 million, a decent result but in my opinion somewhat disappointing considering the importance of the work and the results obtained in previous years for other examples in this series. The total for the contemporary art auction was $269.1 million.

“Untitled” is an abstraction by Willem de Kooning painted around 1979, which Sotheby’s expects to sell for $30-40 million. These large abstractions painted by de Kooning late in his career are generally highly prized by the art market, but I personally find them cold and of less interest than, for example, the more modest “Collage” discussed above. Two other De Kooning abstractions, “Montauk II” and “The Hat Upstairs“, are expected to sell for $10-15 million and $9-12 million respectively. Despite its higher pre-sale estimate, this trio of De Kooning abstractions is no more interesting than another trio of abstractions by Joan Mitchell that are also included in the auction: “Yves” (1991, estimate: $10-15 million), “Bottom Yellow” (1981, estimate: $3-4 million) and “Untitled” (1956, estimate: $1.5-2 million). Willem de Kooning’s “Untitled” sold for $34.8 million.

Alighiero Boetti‘s “Mappa” (1989) (estimate: $8 to $12 million) has everything to beat the artist’s auction record, set a few days ago by another of his “maps“. “Long Delayed Nude” (1967-75, estimate: $1.8 to $2.5 million) is one of Tom Wesselmann‘s sensual pop nudes/ still lifes. Ernie Barnes, one of the big names in the art market in this 2022 season, is represented in the auction by “The Tunesmith” (1978), which carries a modest estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. “Mappa” fetched $8.8 million. “The Tunesmith” was sold for $630,000, continuing the recent tradition of Barnes’s paintings fetching above his expectations.