It’s not every day that Christie’s sells Warhol paintings, a Jeff Koons sculpture, a Ducati motorcycle, a Royère sofa, and tribal art in a single sale.
But it did yesterday as part of the sale of works from the collector Adam Lindemann, which brought in a total of $31.5 million for 36 lots, all of which sold (though one lot was withdrawn). The pre-sale estimate was $22 million to $34 million. (Final prices include premiums while estimates do not.)
“I like to mix old and new,” Lindemann told Artnet News after the sale. “It was amazing to have the opportunity to use these works of art to tell a story about myself, my aesthetic, what I like, and how I see the world of design, the world of art.”
Andy Warhol, Little Electric Chair (1964). Image courtesy Christie’s.
The highest price achieved at the sale—titled “Adam: The collection of Adam Lindemann”—was $5.5 million for an Alexander Calder mobile, Black Disc with Flags (1939), followed by Warhol’s haunting Little Electric Chair (1964) in a day-glo shade of pink that sold for $4.5 million. Koons’s large, unforgettable sculpture of children with a pig, Ushering in Banality (1988), sold for $3.9 million.
A green “Ours Polar” sofa and pair of armchairs by Jean Royère (circa 1952) sold for $3.4 million, double the high $1.5 million estimate.
Jeff Koons, Ushering in Banality (1988). Image courtesy Christie’s.
“I was thrilled to see the record for the Royère sofa set because that to me is the best one that has ever been sold publicly,” he said, “even though it stalled at $900,000 and I almost had a heart attack.” (The bidding, of course, took off again after that brief pause.)
Work by female artists also figured prominently. Karen Kilimnick’s oval portrait painting The 1700s-Dinner Soirée, (2000) sold for a mid-estimate $107,000, while Jamian Juliano-Villani’s painting Welcome to My Booth (2019), sold for $75,600, well above the high $60,000 estimate.
Karen Kilimnick, The 1700s-Dinner Soirée (2000). Image courtesy the artist.
Lindemann, who has promised a seven-figure gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from the proceeds, emphasized that he did not include any artists from the roster of his own gallery, Venus Over Manhattan.
A painting by the sought-after Chicago Imagist Jim Nutt, titled Plume, sold for $478,800, well above its high $200,000 estimate. And a Damien Hirst pill-filled medicine cabinet, The Sleep of Reason, sold for $2.2 million (estimate: $1.5 to 2.5 million).
“This was a good way to tell a story and move on,” Lindemann said. “I redecorated the next day. I love collecting and I love the action of it.”