(Belga) The hyper-dynamic art auction market in New York has once once more broken a record claimed by Sotheby’s: 922 million dollars for the very famous Macklowe collection sold twice, last November and Monday evening.
Sotheby’s, which moved from London to New York and has been owned since 2019 by Franco-Israeli telecom mogul Patrick Drahi, topped the fall season in November by totaling $676.1 million in sales in a single evening alone. with the first batch of 35 works from this Macklowe collection. On Monday night, Macklowe’s other 30 plays sold out within 90 minutes for $246.1 million. With a “total of 922.2 million dollars”, this makes it “the most expensive collection ever sold at auction”, welcomed Sotheby’s. It was put on the market in two batches following the divorce of the wealthy couple formed by Harry Macklowe, a real estate developer, and Linda Burg, an honorary administrator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) in New York. Among the successful sales of the evening, the painting “Untitled” by Mark Rothko sold for 48 million dollars, the “Seestück” by Gerhard Richter sold for 30.2 million dollars and the “Self Portrait” by Andy Warhol which reached $18.7 million, according to Sotheby’s. In November, “Le Nez” by Alberto Giacometti, an impressive suspended bronze on which the sculptor had begun to work in 1947, had been sold for 78.4 million dollars, “N°7”, a minimalist painting by Mark Rothko, 82.4 million and Jackson Pollock’s “Number 17, 1951” sold for $61.1 million. (Belga)