The contemporary art market settled down to a steadier pace at Sotheby’s New York Wednesday evening, turning in a solid and respectable $294,850,000 sale for the 44 lots that sold. Ten of the 54 lots offered failed to sell for a trim buy-in rate by lot of 18.5 percent. Five works sold for more than $15 million and 38 works sold for over a million dollars. Two artist records were set.The result hit towards the top end of pre-sale expectations of $254-313.7 million, though the estimates do not reflect the buyer’s premium, which is added on to the hammer price of each sold lot. (Those fees are on a sliding scale, calculated at 25 percent of the hammer price up to and including $200,000, 20 percent of any amount in excess of $200,000 and up to and including $3 million, and 12 percent of any amount in excess of that.)Even so, the evening’s reassuring tally trailed last November’s $343,621,000 sale for the 67 lots that sold.Unlike the heavily guaranteed evening sales of Phillips and Christie’s, Sotheby’s had “only” five guarantees, mixed with what the firm describes as Irrevocable Bids, meaning that someone outside the house guaranteed a bid that would be enough to sell the work if no other bidders appeared. If that irrevocable bidder loses out to a competing bidder, he or she will receive an undisclosed piece of the upside for the trouble. The guaranteed lots represented combined pre-sale estimates of $82.5-110 million. They sold for a combined price of $90,794,000, including fees. Guarantees usually fall at around the low estimate, so Sotheby’s and its anonymous partners didn’t shed any red ink.The sale kicked off with frenzied bidding for Frank Stella’s 12 by 12 inch geometric abstraction “Untitled” from 1961, part of the artist’s celebrated Benjamin Moore Paintings series, which sold to New York art advisor Elizabeth Kujawski for $1,210,000 (est. $500,000-700,000), followed in jarring fashion by the late Mike Kelley’s jam-packed, folk art-like trinket relief “Memory Ware Flat #29” from 2001, in mixed-media on board that sold to a telephone bidder for a record $3,700,000 (est. $1.5-2 million).Another Stella entry, “Promenade du Sceptique” from 1974, a huge concentric square painting clad in house paint-applied bands of six primary and secondary colors, drew three bidders and sold to the telephone for $5,402,000 (est. $2-3 million).Cy Twombly’s masterfully looping abstraction “Untitled” from 1970, part of his celebrated Blackboard series of seemingly illegible graffiti and executed in this example in oil and wax crayon on paper, sold to art advisor Jude Hess for $3,350,000 (est. $2-3 million). It whetted the appetite for a much larger and vaunted version from the series later in the evening.The market hunger for works by Alexander Calder continued with “Red Flowers,” a painted and perforated sheet metal and wire hanging mobile from 1954, which sold to another telephone bidder for $4,506,0000 (est. $3-4 million.) Red, if you haven’t noticed, is Calder’s favorite color.Multiple bidders also enlivened the salesroom for Rudolf Stingel’s mirror-like, patterned abstraction “Untitled” from 2005, which shot past the estimate, making $3,550,000 (est. $800,000-1.2 million.).The mood cooled with Cady Noland’s arresting image “Blue Cowboy, Eating,” executed in silkscreen on canvas from 1990 and measuring 72 by 48 inches, which went unsold for a chandelier bid of $1.2 million (est. $2-3 million).The catalogue entry included a warning statement from the famously litigious and anti-market artist, including, “Ms. Noland has not been asked for nor has she given the rights to any photographs of her works or verified their accuracy or authenticity.” That was enough to kill the cowboy.There weren’t any issues with Lucio Fontana’s 78 ¾ inch wide, multi-slashed “Concetto Spaziale, Attese” from 1965, painted in a blazing shade of Ferrari red. It sold to advisor Hess for $16,154,000 (est. $15-20 million) and was apparently inspired by the artist’s viewing of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1964 film “Red Desert.” Twenty-four individual vertical tears traverse across the void-like expanse of the monochromatic canvas.Though hardly a masterwork, Jackson Pollock’s signed and dated poured painting “Number 17, 1949” from 1949, in enamel and aluminum paint on paper mounted on fiberboard, sold to another telephone for $22,930,000 (est. $20-30 million). Its appearance was perfectly timed to coincide with the Museum of Modern Art’s “Jackson Pollock: A Collection Survey, 1934-1954,” which showcases the museum’s fantastic holdings, and a major show at the Dallas Museum of Art, “Jackson Pollock-Blindspots.” The work last sold to Larry Gagosian at Sotheby’s New York in May 2003 for $5,272,000. The total for that long ago evening sale is almost more interesting, tallying all of $27.3 million, illustrating how much this market has grown. The Pollock came armed with an 11th-hour backed guarantee.Another kind of action painting was evident in Christopher Wool’s graffiti scrawled and densely patterned enamel on canvas “Untitled,” from 2000. The broadly scaled (108 by 72 inches) work sold to New York dealer Tony Shafrazi for $3,890,000 (est. 3-4 million).The market held its breath as the cover lot, Andy Warhol’s stunning head and shoulders’ portrait “Mao” from 1972, created the same year President Richard M. Nixon made his historic, diplomatic visit to China, sold to a telephone bidder for $47,514,000 (est. $45-55 million). The 82 by 57 inch picture last sold at Sotheby’s London in June 1996 for £672,500 against an estimate of £100-150,000.Warhol painted 10 monumental versions of Mao, according to the catalogue entry, and the image was taken from the frontispiece portrait of the Communist Party dictator’s “Little Red Book” (a.k.a. “The Quotations of Chairman Mao”). One couldn’t miss another catalogue note in the provenance listing that the painting was owned for a time by Francois Pinault, Christie’s owner.Although the Warhol was backed by a guarantee, the room was eager to see how much bidding beyond that bottom-line guarantee would emerge after Tuesday evening’s lackluster performance of some of the Warhol entries. As it turned out, two telephone bidders briefly vied for the prize.“I think the market in general is plateauing,” said New York art advisor Allan Schwartzman of Art Agency Partners, which bought Warhol’s “Diamond Dust Shadows” from circa 1979 for $2,290,000 (est. $1.8-2.5 million). “The market has sent out a very clear message of what it is prepared to go to and didn’t go beyond that for the most part.” Schwartzman also characterized the sale as “solid and sober with what they had.”The evening’s star entry and cover lot, Cy Twombly’s rhythmic masterwork “Untitled (New York City)” from 1968, comprised of six sensational, horizontal rows of looping white markings set against a charcoal gray background, sold to a telephone manned by Alex Rotter, Sotheby’s co-world-wide head of contemporary art, for a record $70,530,000 (unpublished estimate in excess of $60 million). It last sold at Sotheby’s New York in May 1990, at the height of that era’s art boom, for $3.85 million. It narrowly beat the mark set in November 2014 at Christie’s New York, when “Untitled” from 1970 sold for $69,605,000 against a $35-55 million estimate. Charles Saatchi was the seller. The painting was acquired at that sale by Los Angeles collectors Sydney and Audrey Irmas, and the widow has already gifted the proceeds to benefit the Audrey Irmas Foundation For Social Justice, including the Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Before its preview at Sotheby’s, the painting has not been on public view since that Sotheby’s London sale.Other highlights included Francis Bacon’s searing, full-on nude “Portrait” from 1962, featuring the muscled and well-endowed physique of his lover Peter Lacy. Lacy is sitting alone in the middle of a charcoal gray couch, his arms spread out across the width of the couch, anchored in an otherwise bare room. It sold to a telephone manned by Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s co-head of world-wide contemporary art, for $15,650,000 (est. $12-18 million). The painting was featured in Bacon’s break-out survey show that opened at the Tate Gallery in 1962, the same date as the canvas.While most works sold within their estimates, a few surpassed expected figures, as was the case with Jean-Michel Basquiat’s late and huge “Untitled” painting from 1987, executed in acrylic, oilstick, and pencil on canvas, which sold to a telephone bidder for $8,314,000 (est. $1.8-2.5 million). Tony Shafrazi and Jose Mugrabi were the dueling underbidders.Oddly, or so it seemed to this observer, a stronger and early Basquiat, “Hannibal” from 1982, comprised of acrylic, oilstick, and paper collage on canvas, mounted on tied wooden supports and almost electric in appearance with its Day-Glo orange background, failed to sell (est. $8-12 million). It last appeared at auction at Christie’s New York in May 1993, when it sold for $79,500.The steady and sometimes maddenly slow pace of the sale didn’t produce much drama, but it sent an encouraging signal to the market.“It was a good, solid sale,” said Paris/Salzburg dealer Thaddaeus Ropac, who bought Robert Rauschenberg’s “Star Grass” from 1963, in oil and silkscreen ink on canvas, for $1,150,000 (est. $1.5-2 million). “Nothing was crazy and most everything went within the estimates. If it stays like this I’ll be very happy.”Not everyone felt quite that way.“All of these auctions,” said seasoned Miami collector Marty Margulies as he headed to the exit after 30 or so lots went down, “every single night, it’s so boring to me. I don’t even know who’s buying this stuff.”The evening sale season wraps up Thursday at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern sale.
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