NEW YORK — Sotheby’s made auction history during its American art sale on Thursday morning, when Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1,” 1932, soared to $44,405,000 (est. $10-15 million) to a bidder on the phone with North and South Americas chair Lisa Dennison. It was a new record for O’Keeffe, whose previous high, set in 2001 at Christie’s, was $5.6 million at the hammer, and a record price for a work by any woman artist.
It was not the first American art lot to cross the many-millions threshold recently reserved for contemporary lots by the likes of Lichtenstein or Warhol — Norman Rockwell’s “Saying Grace,” 1951, fetched $46,085,000 at Sotheby’s last year — but the only one to do so in the series of American art sales this week. Still, specialists were optimistic about the overall state of the American art market (which generally ranges from colonial up to World War II era-work), noting strong demand for illustration art in general and for Stieglitz Circle modernists.
The O’Keeffe contributed mightily to Sotheby’s $75,395,499 total on a tight sale of 70 pieces, and the artist’s landscape “On the Old Santa Fe Road,” 1930-31 (est. $2–3 million), came in second at $5,093,000, sold to a different phone bidder. Of the top lot, Santa Fe dealer Nathaniel Owings commented, “It’s iconic, but pound for pound, ‘Santa Fe Road’ is the better painting.”
Private collectors were active and helped drive the top 10 lots to more than $1 million apiece. One denim-clad buyer in the room snatched up O’Keeffe’s oil on board “Untitled (Skunk Cabbage),” 1927 (est. $500-750,000) — another of the works consigned, with the record-setter, by the O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe — for $941,000, Martin Johnson Heade’s “Still Life with Flowers: Red Roses,” ca. 1883-1900 (est. $60–80,000), for $149,000, and a Grandma Moses for $106,250. Notably, Milton Avery— who had a rough time the rest of the week with several buy-ins on subpar paintings — found a new fan in an Asian private collector, who purchased his “Double Wave,” 1955, for $ 1,565,000, just meeting the $1.5 million-to-$2 million estimate.
On November 19 at Christie’s, the bloated 157-lot sale raked in $46,543,250 but tried the patience of all but the most dedicated observers. The large crowd, mostly dealers and advisers with a smattering of collectors, seemed mostly content to spectate, and the auctioneer’s stately pace failed to wring many extra dollars. Top-lot honors went to Rockwell, for his Willie Gillis painting “Hometown News,” 1942 (est. $2–3 million), which sold to a private collector on the phone for $4,197,000.
A bidding war erupted over the cover lot, Oscar Bluemner’s “Jersey Silkmills,” painted in 1911 and then reworked in 1916-17 (est. $2.5-3.5 million). Adviser Nan Chisholm prevailed over adviser Baird Ryan at $3,749,000, on behalf of a Midwestern client, she said. (Two other Bluemners that department head Elizabeth Beaman said had presale interest were bought in, however.) The same client will also be receiving Daniel Garber’s landscape “Reflections,” 1940 (est. $300-500,000), for $365,000, part of a run on Pennsylvania Impressionists in recent months. Ryan didn’t go home empty handed, however, snapping up O’Keeffe’s “Hills and Mesa to the West,” 1945 (est. $2.5–3.5 million), for $3,749,000, and Walter Ufer’s “Trailing Homeward,” 1924 (est. $400–600,000), for $869,000, for his client. A 1946 O’Keeffe abstract sculpture in white-lacquered bronze (est. $600-800,000) set a record of $1,061,000 for the artist in that medium.
A distinguished gent who identified himself as a Puerto Rican collector came prepared to spend, snapping up an early Rockwell grisaille (“Max simply walked up that pier, pulling that fish through the water by main force,” 1917) for a mid-estimate $269,000; Boris Lovet-Lorski’s polished brass sculpture “Stallions,” ca. 1929-31, for $100,000; Mary Cassatt’s “Mother Combing Sara’s Hair (No. 1),” 1901 (est. $400–600,000), for $389,000; and Jane Peterson’s “An Old Pier, Gloucester,” ca. 1919 (est. $120–180,000), for $233,000.
Sales at Heritage and Bonhams this week netted $6.5 million and $4.6 million, respectively. At Bonhams on November 19, George Bellows’s “Two Women,” 1924, one his last figural works before he switched to abstraction, fetched $1,265,000, while Childe Hassam’s Impressionist canvas “Lady in a Garden,” ca. 1890, attained $905,000, speaking to the breadth of interest in all sectors of the American market.
