Alberto Giacometti’s Trois hommes qui marchent (Grand plateau), which David M. Solinger first saw on a visit to the artist’s studio in 1951, sold to a buyer in the room for $30.2 million after a seven-minute bidding battle (est. $15-30m). Hand-painted by the artist at David M. Solinger’s request, the work is the only cast of this sculpture to have been hand-painted by the artist.Willem de Kooning’s 1950 Collage, complete with thumbtacks and pieces of torn paper that illustrate the artist’s working process, achieved $33.6 million - a new auction record for a work on paper by the artist (est. $18-25m). David M. Solinger was among the first collectors to recognize de Kooning’s greatness.Joan Miró’s Femme, étoiles - painted on the day that signalled the end of the Second World War - sold for $17.8 million (est. $15-20m). Alexander Calder’s dynamic Sixteen Black with a Loop, which David M. Solinger acquired just three years after the work was created, was pursued by eight bidders before selling to an Asian collector for a double high estimate $8.5 million (est. $3-4m)Three works by Jean Dubuffet spanning two crucial decades of the artist’s career, totaled $12.3 million - against a combined pre-sale estimate of $6.7-9.3m. The artist’s 1967 Épisode led the group, realizing $5.1 million (est. $3.5-4.5m)

Modern Evening Auction

The William S. Paley Collection

This evening’s sale was highlighted by works from the William S. Paley Collection, sold to benefit a number of charitable organizations which were close to William S. Paley’s heart. Among them, a new endowment at MoMA, established by the Paley Foundation to support the museum’s goals in digital media and technology and to provide for new acquisitions.

Led by Pablo Picasso’s Guitare sur une table (1919) which, in its first auction appearance in more than seven decades, sold for $37.1 million - making it one of the most valuable works of Cubist art by the artist ever sold at auction (est. in excess of $25m).Works from the collection tonight achieved an above combined estimate of $47 million (est.$33.7-37m). Further works from the collection will be offered across sales throughout this week.

Collectors vie for rare works by pioneering women artists:

Tamara de Lempicka’s Portrait de Romana de la Salle sold for $14.1 million - the second highest price for the artist at auction (est. $10-15m)In her first evening auction appearance, Elaine de Kooning’s large-scale canvas, Charge,surpassed its high estimate to sell for a record $1.1m (est. $400,000-600,000)Visita al cirujano plástico by Remedios Varo sold for $3.1 million, becoming one of the most valuable works by the famed Surrealist artist to sell at auction (est.$2-3m).

An Auction First for Fine Art and NFTs

Remedios Varo’s Visita al cirujano plástico, one of the most explicitly autobiographical and pointedly political works in the artist’s oeuvre, became the first work of fine art auctioned by Sotheby’s to be accompanied by a MIRAImage™ NFT.MIRAImage™ NFT is a unique digital identifier linked to a physical object using novel microscopic 3D scanning technology and advanced mathematical techniques that extract the object's identifying “DNA.” Once the scan is generated, an NFT is minted by MIRA to the Ethereum blockchain, forever recording these micron-level details.Benefitting from the technology behind NFTs, the buyer of the painting will receive the unique and immutable encrypted digital signature along with cataloging information so that any future collector will be assured of its history of ownership. This first-of-its-kind sale was made possible with the assistance of Professor Luis-Martin Lozano, one of the world’s foremost experts on Mexican modernism and Remedios Varo.

Hammer Price List, The David M. Solinger Collection Evening Auction, 14 November

Hammer Price, Modern Evening Auction, 14 November