On Tuesday night in New York, Phillips hosted its annual November evening sale of modern and contemporary art, selling 25 lots for $54.1 million, just below its estimate of $62.4 million to $92.3 million. That was down from the same evening last year, when it hauled in $154.6 million across 56 lots. (To be fair, that was a two-parter that included a $70 million sale of 30 works from the Triton Collection Foundation.) Nine lots in this year’s sale were guaranteed, and three failed to sell.
What a difference a year makes. Last time, a new auction record was set for Jadé Fadojutimi, at $1.9 million. This time, with a solo show running at Gagosian’s West 21st Street location in Chelsea, a (slightly smaller) piece sold for a third of that, hammering below its $500,000 low estimate—$571,000 with buyer’s premium. (Estimates do not include such fees; reported prices do.)
Though the night’s bidding was not particularly dramatic, events within the house were. Shortly before the sale began, a woman passed out at its entrance—an awkward start. Then, right after a Robert Ryman painting passed, several members of the New York City Fire Department stepped into the house, turning heads. Nevertheless, auctioneer Henry Highley proceeded swiftly to sell a Cy Twombly for $6.1 million. Estimated between $5 million to $7 million, it was the second-most-expensive artwork hammered in the sale.
The most expensive work was an untitled Jackson Pollock from around 1948, which went for $15.3 million, just above its $13 million estimate. It was originally purchased from the artist’s studio by the famed Miami collector Florence Knoll, who held onto it until 1987, then sold it at Sotheby’s New York for $1.2 million. The work hadn’t been seen since 1999, when it was shown in the Museum of Modern Art’s Pollock retrospective.
Jeff Koons, Two Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Spalding Dr. J Silver Series), 1985. Estimate: $4 million–$6 million. Photo: Courtesy Phillips
A final dramatic event concerned lot number 13, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Self-Portrait (1983). The piece was hammered in the room for $9.3 million, just under its low estimate of $10 million—disappointing but hardly disastrous. However, post-sale, after the audience had decamped for a Christie’s doubleheader, a Phillips spokesperson sent an email to press stating that the piece had, in fact, passed. Presumably it had not met its reserve.
The Basquiat had been owned by collector Larry Warsh and the Mugrabi family. It was also offloaded by Johnny Depp during his infamous divorce from fellow-actor Amber Heard. Depp bought it in 2000 from Christie’s for $578,000, and resold it at the Christie’s in London for about $4.7 million.
However, one item that did sell for seven figures was Jeff Koons’s sculpture Two Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Spalding Dr. J Silver Series), 1985, albeit for a below-estimate $3.6 million. It was consigned by collector Barbara Goldfarb. The work is an edition of two, and the other example sold a decade ago for $6.9 million at Christie’s. When it was first exhibited, the late, great art critic Gary Indiana termed it a “metaphor for current conditions in the biosphere—in art, culture and the social world.”
The evening ended with a rather notorious piece by Andy Warhol, New York Skyscrapers (1981), which, as my colleague Katya Kazakina reported last month, was commissioned by Donald J. Trump, though he never paid for it. Tonight it went for $952,500 against a $700,000 high estimate. Hopefully, that purchased will be completed.