NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s concluded their 2019 auctions last week, reaching an annual sales total of $4.8 billion. From the sale of Claude Monet’s Meules for $110.7 million – a world auction record for Impressionist art – to the world’s most expensive sneaker, below is a look back at the major auction moments that helped define the year at Sotheby’s.
Charles Stewart, Sotheby’s CEO commented: “Our 275th anniversary marked an outstanding year for Sotheby’s, with record sales across categories and geographies. The more than 100 auctions we held over the past two months delivered particularly exceptional results that helped us end 2019 on a very high note. That energy and focus will carry us into 2020, which already promises to be an exciting year.”
JANUARY
In celebration of fearless and ground-breaking women artists of the pre-modern era, Sotheby’s Master Week sale series in New York presented The Female Triumphant: a group of masterworks by 14 trailblazing female artists from the 16th through the 19th centuries. Multiple new benchmark prices were established, most notably for Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, whose Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan achieved $7.2 million – a new world auction record for any female artist of the pre-modern era.
The only complete archive of skate decks by iconic streetwear brand Supreme in private hands sold for $800,000, to Vancouver collector Carson Guo. Diligently and passionately assembled over decades, the archive comprises all 248 decks produced by Supreme over 20 years from 1998 – 2018.
FEBRUARY
Claude Monet’s Le Palais Ducal, a shimmering view of the Doge’s Palace that had remained in the same family collection since 1926, sold for £27.5 million / $36.2 million, surpassing the previous benchmark price for a Venetian view by the artist.
MARCH
Agnes Gund and Oprah Winfrey served as Honorary Co-Chairs for By Women, For Tomorrow’s Women: the first-ever all-women artist benefit auction at a major auction house, whose full proceeds supported financial aid for Miss Porter’s School students. The sale totalled $3.9 million, including a new auction record for Carmen Herrera.
Sotheby's celebrated their 275th anniversary on 11 March – on that date in 1744, Sotheby’s held its first sale in London at Exeter Exchange on The Strand. The auction of ‘several Hundred scarce and valuable Books in all branches of Polite Literature’ fetched a grand total of £826.
The Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Science Awarded to Friedrich von Hayek, one of the greatest minds of the 20th-Century, achieved £1.1 million / $1.5 million – a new record for any item sold in an online-only sale at Sotheby’s to date.
APRIL
The spring auction series in Hong Kong reached $482 million / HK$3.78 billion – the second highest total in company history. THE KAWS ALBUM by street artist KAWS made headlines when it sold for $14.8 million / HK$116 million, setting a new auction record for the artist. Additional highlights of the week included: a record total for any series of wine sales; an 88.22-carat oval-shaped diamond that sold for $13.8 million / HK$108 million; and Untitled (1958) by Chinese artist Zao Wou-ki, sold for $14.8 million / HK$116 million with proceeds to benefit the Art Fund of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
MAY
An icon of Impressionism from Claude Monet’s acclaimed Haystacks series, Meules from 1890 sold for $110.7 million in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale. That result represents: an auction record for any work by Monet; the first work of Impressionist art to cross the $100 million threshold at auction; and the highest auction price of 2019.
Sotheby's unveiled their newly-expanded and reimagined New York City galleries to the public. Designed in collaboration with Sotheby’s by Shohei Shigematsu, of the internationally-acclaimed architecture firm OMA New York, the redesign features vast new galleries that they designed to provide the optimal exhibition space for everything from single objects to expansive collections, and can accommodate works of art of any scale.
Throughout the spring, celebrated artists with strong ties to the Hammer Museum at UCLA donated works to support the creation of a new Artist Fund, which will directly support the museum’s pioneering exhibition program and work with emerging artists. Offered during our Evening and Day Auctions of Contemporary Art, Artists for the Hammer Museum featured works by artists including Mark Bradford, Rashid Johnson, Charles Gaines, and Mark Grotjahn. A highlight of the group was Bradford’s Scratch Pink, an exceptionally vibrant example of the artist’s mixed media paintings from 2018, which achieved $3 million. All 40 donated works were sold, together achieving $12.4 million.
JUNE
Never-before seen at auction, a prime example of Claude Monet’s Nymphéas realized £23.7 million / $29.8 million – among the highest prices ever achieved at auction in Europe for an Impressionist painting. Sotheby’s sold 13 works by Monet this year, for a grand total of $228 million.
At €11.5 million / $12.9 million, the Marceau Rivière Collection achieved the highest total for any private collection of African Art in Europe. The two sessions saw several records along the way, first and foremost for a Baule mask, which made the third highest price ever for an African mask, as well as world record prices achieved a Dan spoon and a Yaure mask.
Sotheby's sales of Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art were highlighted by the Guy and Helen Barbier Family Collection, including Bhupen Khakhr’s landmark Two Men in Benares from 1982 that established a new auction record for the artist at £2.54 million / $3.2 million.
JULY
Collector Miles Nadal acquired the 1972 Nike Waffle Racing Flat ‘Moon Shoe’ for $437,500 – more than two times the previous world auction record for any pair of sneakers – from the online-only auction of The Ultimate Sneaker Collection, held in collaboration with streetwear marketplace Stadium Goods. One of only a handful of pairs known to exist, the present “Moon Shoe” is one of the most significant artifacts in the history of Nike’s multi-billion dollar athletic brand.
On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, three original NASA videotape recordings of that historic event sold for $1.82 million in Sotheby's New York auction dedicated to Space Exploration. This result is more than 8,000 times the price paid for the tapes at a government surplus auction in 1976 by then-NASA intern Gary George.
Sotheby’s set a world auction record for an English watch, when George Daniels’ legendary Space Traveller I rocketed to a sky-high £3.6 million / $4.6 million in London – over 30 times the price set by the watch 31 years ago. Daniels completed the watch in 1982 to commemorate the 1969 American moon landing, an event that left a great impression on his life.
@sothebys reached 1 million followers on Instagram – the largest audience in the auction industry.
AUGUST
Throughout the summer, Sotheby's welcomed visitors to their New York galleries for Treasures from Chatsworth: a rare exhibition in the United States of works from the fabled Devonshire Collection, held at historic Chatsworth House in the United Kingdom. More than forty masterworks were selected for the exhibition to represent the remarkable breadth of the Devonshire Collection – fine art from Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt van Rijn to Lucian Freud, furniture and decorative objects from the 16th century to 21st-century design, and exceptional jewels, costumes, and archive materials commemorating historic occasions were all on view.
SEPTEMBER
A group of 14 artists joined Ugo Rondinone in donating works for Stop Bladder Cancer, a benefit auction within the Contemporary Curated sale in New York, which raised funds for critical research for bladder cancer. Rondinone was diagnosed with high-grade bladder cancer in May of 2017 and has championed research efforts since.
Sotheby's held an online-only auction dedicated to nearly 220 iconic pieces by fashion’s most discreet designer, Martin Margiela, all assembled over more than 20 years by a single private collector. The sale was highlighted by an asymmetrical grey woollen coat from Martin Margiela’s Spring-Summer 2006 show, which sold for £32,500 / $36,000.
OCTOBER
The two-day, ‘white-glove’ (100% sold) auction of the personal collection of the late husband and wife designers Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne achieved an outstanding €91.3 million / $101.5 million in Paris – four times its high estimate, and the highest total for a private art collection sold in France in the last 10 years. The collection was led by a monumental and unique Rhinocrétaire (“Rhinodesk”) from 1991 that realized €5.4 million / $6 million.
Banksy’s Devolved Parliament, a derisive portrayal of The House of Commons reduced to an assembly of parliamentary primates, captured headlines around the world when it sold to applause for £9.9 million / $12.1 million, shattering the artist’s auction record and leading our Contemporary Art Evening Auction.
A new auction record for any spirit was set at Sotheby’s London when The Macallan 60-Year-Old 1926 soared to £1.5 million / $1.9 million, far surpassing its pre-sale estimate of £350,000-450,000. This “holy grail” of whiskies was the star of a sale of more than 460 bottles of Scotch whisky from the collection of a private American Connoisseur, put together over some 20 years.
Auction record prices for works by Sanyu and Yoshitomo Nara highlighted the autumn sale series in Hong Kong, which totaled HK$3.35 billion / US$426 million – the 6th-consecutive Hong Kong series to exceed $400 million. Four bidders competed for Nu, Chinese émigré artist Sanyu’s final masterpiece and one of his largest nude paintings, driving it to a then-record-shattering price of HK$198 million / US$25.2 million. The next night, bidders competed for 10 minutes for Nara’s Knife Behind Back, driving the final price to HK$196 million / US$24.9 million – nearly five times the artist’s previous auction record, set earlier that same day. In addition, top prices for Chinese Works of Art were highlighted by A Highly Important Beijing-Enamelled Pouch-Shaped Glass Vase, Blue Enamel Mark and Period of Qianlong that achieved HK$207.1 million / US$26.4 million, making it the highest-value lot of the year at Sotheby’s Asia.
A dedicated evening sale of luminous canvases from the renowned Najd Collection in London saw 36 Orientalist paintings sold for £33.5 million / $43.3 million – a record for an auction in the category. The sale was led by ‘Renaissance man’ Osman Hamdi Bey – the first Turkish artist to embrace fully the European academic style of painting – whose Koranic Instruction, fetched £4.6 million / $6 million.
Sotheby’s sale of Modern and Contemporary African Art totaled £4 million / $5.1 million in London, the highest ever total achieved for a sale in the category. The auction was led by a rediscovered early portrait by Nigerian master Ben Enwonwu which soared to £1.1 million / $1.4 million after a 13-minute bidding battle – seven times the pre-sale estimate. Titled Christine, the supremely important work was rediscovered after a chance googling of the artist led the owner to Sotheby’s online estimate platform.
NOVEMBER
Asian private collectors acquired top works by American titans of Abstract Expressionism in the Contemporary Art Evening Auction in New York, including paintings by Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still. Executed at a critical moment in the artist’s career, de Kooning’s large-scale Untitled XXII achieved $30.1 million. The work represents the apex of the artist’s mature output.
Sotheby’s announced the winners of the third-annual Sotheby’s Prize, which celebrates curatorial excellence and champions the work of innovative institutions who strive to break new ground by exploring overlooked or under-represented areas of art history. The jury decided that the $250,000 award should be shared between two innovative exhibition projects in Brazil: The ground-breaking project entitled OPY sees three different institutions, PINACOTECA, CASA DO POVO AND KALIPETY, a state museum, a cultural centre and a house of prayer, join forces to explore the place of the indigenous in Brazilian culture (July 2020); and an exhibition at MASP - MUSEU DE ARTE DE SÃO PAULO will present the art and visual culture of different indigenous histories from across the world, bringing together works of different mediums, origins and periods, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century (October 2021).
DECEMBER
The Design Week auctions in New York totalled a record $32.3 million, highlighted by a dedicated auction of European design from the collection of celebrated fashion designer Marc Jacobs. The sale was led by an outstanding ensemble of works by François-Xavier Lalanne, including a pair of patinated bronze monkeys, Singe I and Singe II from 1999, which sold for $860,000 and $920,000, respectively.
The two-day sale of works from the collection of the Comte and Comtesse de Ribes totalled €22.8 million / $25.3 million at Sotheby’s Paris. The first part, dedicated to the “treasures” of the collection, was 100% sold, set five world records, and saw three pre-emptions by the Musées de France. A second part dedicated to books and manuscripts collected by the Counts de Ribes achieved €4.4 million / $4.9 million and included two additional pre-emptions.
Sotheby’s inaugural auction dedicated to Aboriginal art in New York achieved $2.8 million; the sale surpassed its high estimate with 88% of all lots sold and established eight new world auction records. The first Aboriginal Art auction to be held outside of Australia or Europe by an international auction house, the sale featured modern and contemporary indigenous Australian art dating from the 1950s until the present created by artists from the world’s oldest continuous culture.
A new world auction record for any sports memorabilia and a new world auction record for any post-Renaissance manuscript was set at Sotheby’s New York when The Original Olympic Games Manifesto sold for $8.8 million, nearly nine times the manuscript’s high estimate of $1 million. Written in 1892 by French aristocrat, educator and athletics advocate Pierre de Coubertin, the manifesto outlines his vision for reviving the ancient Olympic Games as a modern, international athletic competition.
