SOTHEBY’S MAY 2007 SALES OF CONTEMPORARY ART TOTALS $344,572,000 HIGHEST TOTAL EVER FOR SALES OF
CONTEMPORARY ART EVENING SALE BRINGS $254,874,000 DAY SALE ACHIEVES $89,698,000
of Barbara Jacobson which totaled
$10,630,740. Tom Wesselmann’s sensuous Smoker #17, 1975, which represents the penultimate
development of the monumental, shaped-canvases of the Smoker series, sold for $5,864,000 to the Asian
trade, a record for the artist at auction (est. $2.5/3.5 million). Iconic examples of Pop Art from the Estate
included Warhol’s Large Campbell’s Soup Can of 1964, which brought $5,528,000, selling to a private
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collector (est. $3.5/4.5 million), and Lichtenstein’s Still Life with Green Vase of 1972, which achieved
$4,296,000, selling to an American dealer (est. $3/4 million).
Another work by Lichtenstein, Girl with a Mirror, 1965, elicited furious bidding, commanding $4,072,000
after participation from seven bidders, ultimately selling to an American dealer (est. $1/1.5 million). Other
highlights of the sale included Willem de Kooning’s Figure in Landscape No. 1, painted in 1951, which
sold for $4,072,000 to an American private (est. $3/4 million), and Peter Doig’s The Architect’s Home
in the Ravine, 1991, which brought $3,624,000, selling to an American private (est. $1.2/1.8 million).
Sotheby’s day sale of Contemporary Art commanded $89,698,000, well above its high estimate and the
highest total ever for a day sale of contemporary art (est. $53.6/74.1 million). The top-selling lot of the
auction was Frank Stella’s Untitled (Black and White Maze), 1966, which brought $2,616,000 (est.
$800,000/1.2 million). Miety Heiden, specialist of Contemporary Art, commented: “We are delighted with
the extraordinary result of today’s auction, the highest total ever for a day sale of Contemporary Art. The
market is extremely strong for work by both post-war and younger artists, and today we saw
unprecedented demand for work by Asian artists such as Lee Ufan and Yoshitomo Nara, which set
records for the artists at auction. The bidding in our sale continued to be very global today, with strong
participation from Europe, Asia and America.”
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*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium
