Record-breaking female Surrealists spice up underwhelming Christie’s New York sales

Hours before New York’s marquee spring sales week kicked off at Christie’s yesterday (12 May), news broke of a temporary detente between China and US that will lower tariffs between the countries for the next 90 days. “I did feel some relief,” says Christie’s recently appointed chief executive Bonnie Brennan of the latest update to the mercurial political situation. “We continue to monitor it closely.”

Unsurprisingly in this febrile context, Christie’s chose to mitigate risk for both itself and its consignors by shoring up last night’s double-header of sales with hefty third-party guarantees—these accounted for more than half of all lots.

The evening began with the sale of 39 works from the collection of Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio and his wife Louise, followed by a 20th century evening sale of 37 lots, around ten of which came from the collection of the late Anne Bass.

On the surface results were solid, with both sales falling squarely within their pre-sale estimates (all estimates are calculated without fees), although they came short of their estimates when discounting buyer’s premium. The Riggio collection made $272m (with fees) against a $252m to $326m estimate, while the 20th-century evening sale achieved $216m (with fees) against a $194m to $260m estimate, bringing in a $489m total for Christie’s.

Those irrevocable bids, which according to a number of experts were offered with increased flexibility and in package deals this season, helped to achieve a robust sell through rate of 94%, with just one work bought in and three withdrawn.

Yet although there were few casualties, there were even fewer sparks thanks to shallow bidding. The evening also resulted in losses for a few consignors, most notably the owner of Lucio Fontana’s galactic canvas Concetto spaziale, In piazza San Marco di notte con Teresita, which sold in 2017 for $14m, but last night netted just $7.5m (with fees)—a 42% negative return for its seller, and a steal for its third-party guarantor.

The prevailing tension among consignors of high-value work was best sensed by the last-minute withdrawal of Andy Warhol’s Electric Chair, which had an undisclosed price of around $30m. The adviser Philip Hoffman tells The Art Newspaper that the going offer being orchestrated behind the scenes was “around $10m below what the consignor would settle for”—attesting to a “massive gap between what sellers want and what buyers are presently willing to pay”.

Christie’s would have fought hard for the Riggio trove, which is the most valuable single-owner collection to sell in the past 12 months, and evidently offered punchy estimates to do so. This seemed to diminish interest and energy failed to materialise in the room during the first auction, which was steered by Adrien Meyer, Christie’s co-chairman of Impressionist and Modern art, whose jocular charm was often not enough to coax more than shallow bidding for much of the sale.

All eyes were squarely on the Mondrian’s Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue, painted in Paris in 1922 near the start of his De Stijl period. Hopes were pinned on the work, estimated in the region of $50m, to beat the artist’s $51m auction record made in November 2022 at Sotheby’s New York. It was hammered at $41m ($47.6m with fees) to a phone bidder with Alex Rotter.

Another anticipated lot that failed to produce fireworks was a painting from Magritte’s coveted Empire of Light series. This hammered at $30m ($34.9m with fees), the same price it went for at Christie’s in 2023.

A burst of energy occurred midway through the second auction, where Monet’s Peupliers au bord de l’Epte, crépuscule elicited the evening’s only real bidding battle, in which three specialists tussled for almost five minutes. Eventually it hammered at $37m ($42.9m with fees), solidly within its $30m to $50m estimate. This energy was sustained when, a few lots later, two female Surrealists, Dorothea Tanning and Remedios Varo, consecutively made their auction records. Tanning’s 1944 painting Endgame went for $2.3m while Varo’s Revelación (also titled El relojero) from 1955 sold for $6.2m (both with fees).

With tonight’s results, Christie’s feels confident that it has largely satisfied its clients. “We unlocked supply and brought good results to our consignors,” says Rotter, who was named Christie’s global president this month. But it has likely failed to provide much confidence to a jittery market. “It was a solid result,” Brennan says. “But of course we would have liked to have seen more bidding.”

Hoffman observed after the sale: “The issue is that the expectation was slightly hyped. Dealers in room were hoping for more action. They hoped that with the stock market back up and and things look like they are resolving—that more money would come out.”

The spring sales will continue this evening at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern auction, but as Hoffman adds: “It’s not been the best start to the week, I don’t think Sotheby’s will be thrilled.”