New York’s Marquee Week Gets It Mojo Back

New York’s marquee week sent a clear message: where there is great art from great collections, there is hope.

Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips all saw their performance improve last week on the HENI Auction Index as the three major auction houses generated $2.2 billion of revenue, selling more than 1,700 lots across 18 sales.

On the HENI Auction Index, a benchmark based on 10+ metrics, the week scored an impressive A compared to this May and last November’s underwhelming C-. It is the strongest performance during the marquee sales in the city since spring 2022.

Sotheby’s claimed the top spot with an A+ week, propelled by Leonard Lauder’s starry collection—especially his three Klimts. The cosmetic billionaire’s works by the Austrian artist fetched almost $385m including fees on November 18, nearly a third of the auction house’s $1.2 billion total sales last week.

The Exquisite Corpus sales of Surrealist art, reportedly from the estate of Selma Ertegun, widow of music mogul Nesuhi Ertegun, clinched Sotheby’s podium finish. The sales were led by a Frida Kahlo self-portrait that soared to $54.66m with fees and they totaled just over $100m.

Jay and Cindy Pritzker’s late Van Gogh still-life led its sale of their collection, which totaled $109.5m, above its high estimate, $62.7m of which was down to the one painting.

Christie’s too was boosted by sales of collections created by husband-and-wife teams.

The late Pennsylvania-based supermarket billionaire Robert Weis and his wife Patsy’s Rothko, Picasso and Mondrian were the auction house's top lots last week, accounting for $130m in the auction house’s total sales when fees are added. The Weis sale totaled $218m, falling just short of its high estimate.

A decade ago Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson made one of the largest gifts to the Art Institute of Chicago in its history, worth an estimated $400m. Works they did not donate helped bolster Christie’s $123.6m 21st Century evening sale on November 20, in particular their Warhol Last Supper, which led the auction and sold for $8.13m with fees.

Overall, Christie's scored a B on the HENI Auction Index, an improvement on its C+ in May.

Phillips scored a B-, up from a C- in May, led by a Francis Bacon diptych and Joan Mitchell abstract, which sold for $16m and $14m respectively, with fees.

Across the auction houses the number of guarantees and irrevocable bids increased. Strong guarantees reached three times the level seen in comparable marquee weeks. Weak guarantees, when works sold for below their low estimate, were only twice the usual number, suggesting an improvement in the split.

The percentages of lots hammering above their low and high estimates improved to levels that are 10% above typical.

There were plenty of new auction records, most memorably for Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer. It became the most expensive work of modern art ever sold at auction after selling for $236.4m with fees in the Lauder sale.

Kahlo's El sueño (La cama) became the most expensive work by a female artist to sell at auction.

Surrealists Dorothea Tanning, Getrude Abercrombie and Leonor Fini saw their auction records rise. So did artists Olga de Amaral and Firelei Baez, the last twice on the same night at Phillips and then Christie's.

The percentages of lots bought-in and withdrawn fell to levels that were below average, a further indication of a healthier market.

Among the works that failed to find a buyer was a painting by Leonora Carrington, with an $1.2m to $1.8m estimate, at Sotheby’s. Meanwhile, at Phillips one-time market darling Jade Fadojutimi’s 2022 untitled painting, which had a $800,000 to $1.2m estimate, was also bought-in.

September’s New York sales brought cautious optimism that was tempered by solid-to-sluggish auctions during Frieze week in London but Manhattan bounced back.

Dealers heading to Miami for Art Basel and its satellites will hope the postive vibes will travel south with them.

Methodology: for how the HENI Auction Index classifies sales, see here