No sooner had Sotheby's achieved the highest total for a single auction this year with $406.4 million for the Emily Fisher Landau collection on November 8, Christie's ended its 20th Century Evening Sale with $640.8 million sum on November 9.
Related: Emily Fisher Landau's $400M Collection Sets New Auction Records
A Claude Monet water lily masterpiece, titled Le bassin aux nymphéas, entered the auction room with an estimate in the range of $65 million and sold for $74 million. While this is not a new record for Monet in general or for any of his water lily paintings in particular, it is undoubtedly an impressive sum and the highest of the auction. In total, 10 works sold for more than $20 million, including Figure in Movement by Francis Bacon ($52.1 million) and Pablo Picasso's Femme endormie ($42.9 million.)
Related: Monet's $65 Million Water Lilies at Christie's
The auction also proved to be record breaking for three major artists, with Richard Diebenkorn's Recollections of a Visit to Leningrad ($46.4 million), Joan Mitchell's Untitled ($29.1 million) and Arshile Gorky's Charred Beloved I ($23.4 million). Other new top prices were achieved for works by Barbara Hepworth, Fernando Botero and Joan Snyder. In total, 97% of the lots were sold and the result was 105% over the low estimate.
Emily Kaplan, Co-Head of the 20th Century Evening Sale, was more than satisfied, saying, "It was a thrill to oversee this season’s 20th Century Evening Sale. The offerings were of the highest quality and the market responded with unparalleled enthusiasm. We set new benchmarks, achieving record prices for six artists, including art historical icons: Richard Diebenkorn, Joan Mitchell, and Arshile Gorky. The auction was an unrivaled success."
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The 21st Century Evening Sale had already taken place at Christie's on November 7, and although it also boasted new records, it was met with less interest overall.
Related: Twombly Fetches $17 Million at Christie's Amidst Market Fluctuations
The two auctions were watched by 2.5 million viewers from all over the world. Jussi Pylkännen, auctioneer and Christie's Global President, who will say goodbye to Christie's in December after 38 years, said, "It’s really become a global market, which I never imagined would be the case when I stood in the sale room in 1987, and we sold the [Van Gogh] Sunflowers to a Japanese buyer. The Western world sort of shook...We work in a very different environment now. It’s a wonderful, multicultural environment."
