A head-spinning, high-variance spring auction cycle had its finale on the Upper East Side on Thursday night, as Sotheby’s held the latest editions of its The Now and Contemporary evening sales back-to-back. Just 24 hours after Christie’s and Phillips’s dueling sales produced relatively uninspiring results—and 48 hours after the uneven performance of Sotheby’s own Mo Ostin and Modern evening auctions—there was a sense in the salesroom that anything could happen.
It turned out that a little bit of everything did by the time the night was over. Below, the key data from the double-header.
While the specter of the unexpected was most certainly in the salesroom before The Now kicked off, it took on a darker cast during the intermission. A strong showing from the opening lot of the Contemporary frame exorcised some of the tension, as David Hockney’s Drawing of a Pool and a Towel hammered $1 million above its high estimate of $1.5 million. The greatest relief came from Sotheby’s ability to find buyers for all five of the works in the sale estimated to sell for $10 million or more—though two hammered beneath their low expectation, and none of the other three exceeded their high estimate.
Five withdrawn lots, all anticipated to go for at least $1 million, contributed to the Contemporary sale’s failure to launch. (One has to wonder how many of those withdrawals were finalized by calls or texts to consignors during the roughly 15 minutes between auctions.) But Sotheby’s specialists kept disaster at bay by selling all 28 of the other lots on the call sheet.
Here’s how the data shook out…
Next sale up: Mercifully, none. Let’s all try to get some sleep, no?
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