Scott Niichel, Co-Head of Impressionist & Modern Art Department and Head of Day Sales in New York, commented: “Monday’s sale offered something for every taste. We saw a great depth of bidding for nearly every genre within our diverse collecting field, from early Impressionist drawings and paintings to Modern and Surrealist paintings and sculpture. We continue to see robust demand for Latin American artists, as illustrated by the excellent prices achieved for Rufino Tamayo, José Clemente Orozco and Cundo Bermúdez. We were further honored to be entrusted with a terrific consignment from the San Diego Museum of Art, which achieved excellent results that will support the Museum’s acquisition fund. We successfully sourced and sold two substantial Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale auctions during this extraordinary season, in addition to a broader series of online auctions within this category, and our results signal not only serious demand among new and seasoned collectors, but also the enduring health and strength of our overall market.”

Monday’s Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale achieved the auction’s highest sell-through rate since May 2014. Together with our first-ever Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale Online in May, the spring sales realized an overall total of $26.6 million. Attracting an average of three bidders for every lot sold, the auctions saw competition from more than 40 countries, with nearly 20% of all buyers new to Sotheby’s.
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Monday’s sale was led by Paul Delvaux’s dream-like canvas L’Impératrice, which sold to an online bidder for $1.2 million (above, estimate $1/1.5 million). Though he refused any formal association with Surrealism, Paul Delvaux was deeply inspired by the imaginative art of Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst and fellow Belgian René Magritte, and he created a rich body of work renowned for dream-like figural images featuring classical motifs. Painted in 1974 in his native Brussels, L’Impératrice is a characteristically mysterious neo-classical scene and represents the first major oil by the artist to appear at auction in over two years.

Works by Latin American artists achieved a number of top prices in the auction, led by Rufino Tamayo’s Personajes en rosa, which realized $716,000 (estimate $700/900,000). Painted in the early 1980s, the work reveals the psychological connection between two figures whose disconnected posture and gaze present themselves as equal parts of a unit. In addition, José Clemente Orozco’s La Cantina from 1941, fetched $596,000 (estimate $600/800,000). The work was offered from The Vanguard Spirit: Modern and Surrealist Masterworks from an Important Estate, which totaled $30.2 million in total across this week’s sales series. In La Cantina, Orozco revisits a theme that preoccupied his first years of painting, depicting the desperation of Mexico’s lower classes during the Revolutionary years.

Further highlights of the sale included Marc Chagall’s late work on paper, Rêve d'amour, which sold for $596,000, surpassing its pre-sale high estimate of $450,000; and Tamara de Lempicka’s post-war still life, Plante grasse et fiole, which also achieved $596,000 (estimate $400/600,000). The sale also saw two new artist records achieved for Jonathan Winters and Anna Guntner. 

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