Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby's Director of Latin American Art, commented: “Tonight’s groundbreaking result for Wifredo Lam’s masterpiece Omi Obini, also from The Vanguard Spirit, not only resoundingly set a new auction record for the artist, but it also asserts Lam’s place as one of the premier Surrealist artists of his time. The undisputed masterpiece ranks among his finest works, comparably perhaps only to his well-known painting The Jungle, in the permanent collection of MoMA in New York. In the same vein, the Chilean artist Mario Carreño’s Cortadores de caña also established a new auction record, and is one of the most iconic images of la vanguardia Cubana. Since Sotheby’s began featuring Latin American artists in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sales rather than separate Latin American Art sales, we have seen them continue to achieve record prices each season, and The Vanguard Spirit emphatically asserted that trend.”

EVENING SALES TOTAL: $363.2 MILLION
93.2% Sold by Lot
Evening Estimate: $262.1/368.4 Million

Tonight’s three auctions offered a strong selection of works by women artists, with all 25 works offered by 16 artists selling for a total of $86.1 million, and setting 5 new world auction records

Each sale offered works emerging from notable private collections, including:
18 works from The Ginny Williams Collection were 100% sold, totaling $65.5 million
10 works from the Collection of Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson were 100% sold, totaling $66.3 million
11 works from a private collection of Latin American Surrealist and Modern art titled The Vanguard Spirit were 91% sold (10 sold), totaling $26.6 million

Surrealist works of art drove the results of the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, with 14 works by 11 artists totaling $46 million, and setting 4 new world auction records

AUCTION RECORDS ACHIEVED FOR:
Mario Carreño, Vija Celmins, Leonor Fini, Helen Frankenthaler, Wifredo Lam, Alice Rahon, Remedios Varo, Matthew Wong, Jean-Michel Basquiat (Work on Paper)

THE GINNY WILLIAMS COLLECTION EVENING SALE
Auction Total: $65.5 Million
Sale Estimate $35.9/51.7 Million
100% Sold by Lot

The evening opened with a dedicated ‘white glove’ auction (100% sold) of 18 works from the collection of Ginny Williams, the trailblazing dealer and collector of Abstract Expressionist and contemporary art

Featuring works by trailblazing female modernists, the sale featured three works by Joan Mitchell that together achieved $22.7 million. The group was led by Straw from 1976, which sold for $8.8 million (estimate $5/7 million).

Mitchell’s Garden Party from 1962 achieved $7.9 million (estimate $4/6 million) - at the time marking Sotheby’s highest-ever price for a work sold to an online bidder, which was surpassed later this evening
Together the three paintings form a mini-retrospective of Mitchell’s work – spanning the breadth of her paintings from the Abstract Expressionist-inspired masterpieces of the mid-1950s to the monumental canvases of the 1970s

Helen Frankenthaler’s Royal Fireworks achieved $7.9 million (estimate $2/3 million) – a new world auction record for the artist

Williams set a new world auction record for the artist when she acquired Royal Fireworks in 2011

The luminous and monumental canvas extending nearly 15-feet across is a masterpiece from her highly acclaimed period of production in the mid-1970s

The previous Frankenthaler record was set at Sotheby’s in May 2018 when Blue Reach sold for $3 million in our Contemporary Art Day Auction

Lee Krasner’s Re-Echo from 1957 led the auction, achieving $9 million (estimate $4/6 million) - the second-highest price for the artist at auction

Sotheby’s sales of works from The Ginny Williams Collection continue throughout 2020, including in tomorrow’s Contemporary Art Day Auction as well as a dedicated sale of Photographs from the collection on 14 July

CONTEMPORARY ART EVENING AUCTION
Auction Total: $234.9 Million
Sale Estimate: $171.4/239.1 Million
96.7% Sold by Lot

Our two Contemporary Art auctions this evening together achieved $300.4 million - surpassing our November 2019 evening total for the category ($270.5 million)

The Contemporary auction was led by Francis Bacon’s large-format masterpiece Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus from 1981, which sold for $84.6 million - surpassing its $80 million high estimate and marking the third-highest price for the artist’s work at auction

The work sold to a phone bidder with Grégoire Billault of Sotheby’s NY Contemporary Art Department following a ten-minute bidding battle with an online bidder participating from China

The work is one of 28 large-format triptychs that Bacon created between 1962 and 1991, and only the 6th example ever to appear at auction

Inspired by Aeschylus’s trilogy of Greek tragedies dating to the 5th century B.C., the present triptych stands as one of the most ambitious, enigmatic, and important works of Bacon’s oeuvre, and a landmark of 20th century art

Acquired in 1984 by the Norwegian collector Hans Rasmus Astrup, the triptych has been in the care of Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo since its founding by Mr. Astrup in 1993

A spectacular group of abstract masterpieces from the Collection of Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson highlighted the auction. All 10 works were sold, for a total of $66.3 million

The group was led by Clyfford Still’s PH-144 (1947-Y-No.1) from 1947 painted at the formative apex of the artist’s career, which sold for $28.7 million