Christie’s sells US$1.1 billion in art in one night — with a little help from Nicole Kidman

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), Number 7A, 1948, 1948. Oil and enamel on canvas. (Christie's)

NEW YORK -- On Monday evening, it took auction house Christie’s just 40 minutes to sell more than US$630 million in art, smashing records for both the painter Jackson Pollock and sculptor Constantin Brancusi. Later in the night, it rounded things off with yet more broken records and another $490 million.

The first part of the $1.1-billion New York sale featured 16 works from S.I. Newhouse’s storied collection. It marked the fourth time Christie’s has brought a group of works to market from the late media giant, who owned Condé Nast, as well as large slice of America’s local newspapers and broadcast stations.

But it was the first time that the auction house tapped Nicole Kidman for a promotional video, filming her free-flowing encounter with the golden Brancusi bust “Danaïde,” which was poised to be one of the night’s star lots. The video was based on a 1930s Man Ray film of fellow surrealist Lee Miller, per Christie’s, and while it didn’t quite take off in the same way as Kidman’s viral AMC ad, it did once again prove her commitment to any and all roles.

Netting $107.6 million with fees, “Danaïde” surpassed Brancusi’s previous auction record of $71.2 million almost as soon as bidding began. A pivotal drip painting by Pollock — of which few of its scale remain in private hands — also soared skyward, to applause, landing at $181.2 million with fees to become the night’s top-grossing lot. The price tag far surpassed the abstract expressionist’s previous 2021 record of $61.2 million — and he did it without the help of Kidman.

Hours before the sale, Sara Friedlander, a chair of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s, said that the celebrity campaign was just one of many approaches used to promote the sales. Brancusi was “such a modern innovator,” she said, “and so I think for us to do things that are innovative around extraordinary objects is something we, too, are experimenting with.”

Works by Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg also contributed to the allure of the Newhouse sale. As a single-owner collection, only that of the late Paul G. Allen has generated more at auction — in 2022, the two-part blow-out sale of works amassed by the Microsoft co-founder fetched a record-breaking $1.5 billion on the first night alone. Newhouse’s works have, instead, sold in occasional tranches, including the $91 million sale of “Rabbit” that made Jeff Koons the world’s most expensive living artist (by public auction records, at least) in 2019.

Newhouse’s collection came to auction, in part, thanks to Tobias Meyer, an art advisor and former auctioneer who has represented the media titan’s family. Meyer was the instrumental voice behind steering this collection,” Friedlander said.

But it also came down to apartment space, too, according to The New York Times, which reported that Newhouse’s widow, Victoria, was scaling down. “I’m not getting any younger and I feel the time has come to start downsizing,” she told the paper. “It’s an effort to simplify my life.”

The top end of the art market, led by Christie’s and Sotheby’s, has been hellbent on a rebound over the past year, after a series of rocky sales and global economic uncertainty cast doubt on demand for blockbuster works. Both auction houses have courted powerhouse single-owner collections, including those of Allen, Leonard A. Lauder and Pauline Karpidas, to inject the market with rare paintings from 20th-century artists that are getting harder to come by. Monday’s sales at Christie’s also included three masterworks from the collection of former Museum of Modern Art president Agnes Gund, which set a new $98.4 million record for Mark Rothko, while Sotheby’s offered up treasures worth $166.3 million from the late art dealer Robert Mnuchin last week.

The strategy appears to have whetted the appetites of billionaire buyers, but recent wins may not signal the market’s long-term recovery. According to Artnet, there are no more than 30 “whales” — the market’s biggest spenders — with the power to make a major auction sink or swim. And, like the $236.4-million Gustav Klimt record last fall, a decisive star lot can buoy the rest, hiding any still lingering or lurking uncertainties.

Still, Monday’s evening sales, which also included 48 20th-century works from outside Newhouse’s collection, certainly flexed collectors’ strength. A record-breaking 20,000 visitors came to see the works at Christie’s before they went back into private hands. Kidman may have been talking about AMC when she said, “We come to this place for magic,” but the art market still has some rabbits to pull, too.

By Jacqui Palumbo, CNN