Allen’s first of two sales broke the six-month record of $922 million set at Sotheby’s for art by Harry and Linda Macklowe, a feuding couple whose divorce settlement included the sale of their collection. Where the $100 million price tag was used to signal entry into a rarefied club of auction record holders, the salesroom barely applauded as several lots breached that mark, including Georges Seurat’s “Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version)” ($149 million, with fees) ; Paul Cézanne’s 1888-90 Cubist precursor “La Montagne Sainte-Victoire” ($138 million). Van Gogh’s verdant scene in Arles, “Verger avec cyprès” ($117 million). and Gustav Klimt’s 1903 autumnal “Birch Forest” ($105 million). The Klimt sale broke the previous high for the artist at auction: $88 million for “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II” in 2006, the same year Allen bought his Klimt for about $40 million. Confirming the seeming immunity to world events of the art market’s top piece, bidding in the sale was strong on many lots (there were four on the Seurat). Some art experts said the lack of a potential market-wrecking political issue in Tuesday’s election made buyers more comfortable parting with cash for beautiful pictures. “People want to put their money into hard assets,” said trader Nicholas Maclean of London and New York. The auction of the art of Allen, who died in 2018, generated a level of excitement not usually seen in an often jaded art world. Among the usual suspects in the room — such as dealers Larry Gagosian, David Zwirner, Amalia Dayan and Joe Nahmad — who had flocked to the auction was Christie’s owner François-Henri Pinault, who sat in one of the more discreet skyboxes. . “We are seeing a very focused activity from collectors in response to the rare masterpieces coming to market,” said dealer Dominique Lévy. “Such a sale does not reflect the art market in general, but the appetite for extremely rare works. It is very important to understand the patina of this unique legendary provenance.” The sale topped $1 billion with Lot 32, Alberto Giacometti’s graceful nude “Femme de Venise III,” which sold for $25 million with an estimate of $15 million to $20 million. This development, however, was not announced by the auctioneer. little did those in the room know that the art market had just made history. Many of the evening’s buyers bid by phone in Asia. “Buyers in Asia are very vibrant,” Gagosian said. “When something is rare and great, it is possible.” From the start, the first three lots sold well above their estimates. These included Edward Steichen’s dark, haunting 1904 “Flatiron,” showing the Flatiron Building in New York. At $12 million – four times the high estimate – it set an auction high for the artist. It was the second-highest price ever paid for a photograph, after Man Ray’s 1924 “Le Violon d’Ingres,” which fetched $12.4 million at Christie’s last May. More than 20,000 people saw the collection in advance, with lines lasting up to two hours at downtown Rockefeller Plaza. Such previews often attract art lovers who wish to see masterpieces before many of them disappear into private collections.
Special Department of Fine Arts & Exhibitions
The sale was eagerly awaited by collectors, not only for the record-setting estimates, but also because of the range of blue-chip works represented in Allen’s collection, which he began in the 1980s. The artworks – more than 150 of which came to Christie’s, which will offer 95 of them in a one-day sale on Thursday – span 500 years of history. It ranged from Botticelli’s classic ‘Madonna of the Magnificat’ (mid-15th to early 16th century), which sold for $48 million with an estimate of $40 million, to Wayne Thiebaud’s whimsical dessert line, ‘Café Cart’ (2012). , which sold for $6 million with an estimate of $3 to $5 million. It included a fiery abstract painting by Jasper Johns, “Small False Start,” an early work from the 1960s, which sold for $55 million (estimate was $45 million to $65 million). The blue, red, yellow and orange work broke the artist’s record of $36 million, set in 2014, for a flag painting purchased by Alice Walton. “It tells the story of his relationship with collage,” said art consultant Allan Schwartzman, who has a professional relationship with the Allen estate. “It is an exquisite object.” The collection was heavy on figurative works such as Édouard Manet’s painting of a gondolier, “Le Grand Canal à Venise,” and David Hockney’s “The Conversation,” which depicts curator Henry Geldzahler and writer Raymond Foye engaged in a tense discussion. David Nash, who served as Allen’s art adviser, said the tech mogul was as enthusiastic about buying paintings as he was about all his other interests, which included sports teams, marine biology and brain research. “The Seurat is probably an irreplaceable painting — and the Van Gogh and the Cézanne,” he said. At the same time, some art experts said the sale was a better barometer of Allen’s purchasing power than his unique aesthetic passion. “It’s like the mind of technology — everything is in great shape, vibrant colors, not too disturbing, not too sexual — as a numbers or computer guy would think it through. Every single one of them is a near-perfect example,” said dealer and collector Adam Lindemann. “I don’t think the collection says much about him. You can walk through the whole affair and not come away with a feeling for Paul Allen. It is very detailed and very accurate.” Schwartzman, the art consultant, on the other hand, said he saw in the collection “someone who had a very personal connection to the works he bought.” He added, “I find it moving that someone who has had such an impact on how the world works today, also had this strong and personal response to the artist and the hand.” Allen was somewhat ahead of his time by collecting works by women such as Agnes Martin, Louise Bourgeois and Barbara Hepworth. And on Wednesday, Georgia O’Keeffe’s “White Rose with Larkspur No. 1” sold for $27 million, more than four times its low estimate of $6 million. Christie’s guaranteed the entire sale, meaning the auction house had agreed to pay the Allen estate a minimum negotiation price for the entire cache. Christie’s then hedged this risk by securing minimum bids for many of the lots from third parties – people who agreed to a purchase price in advance, thereby ensuring that they could buy the work if it did not exceed the guarantee. All proceeds went to charity, as directed by Allen. His estate has not disclosed the beneficiaries, perhaps to avoid alienating potential buyers who did not agree with the charitable purposes. The high prices confirmed Allen’s discerning taste, as well as his eye for art that was likely to appreciate. In 2016 he sold a Gerhard Richter painting of an American fighter jet for $25.6 million, more than double the $11.2 million he had paid a decade earlier, and in 2014, he sold a Mark Rothko painting for $56.1 million dollars, for which he had paid $34.2 million in 2007. “He was a top market buyer,” said Amy Cappellazzo, a prominent consultant and former auction executive, “without a lot of competition.”
