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At $922 Million, the Macklowe Collection Becomes the Most Valuable Ever Sold at Auction
The unparalleled group of 65 masterworks acquired through extraordinary connoisseurship was sold over two white-glove sales on 15 November 2021 and 16 May 2022.
A t a certain point during Monday’s auction of 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:The Macklowe Collection, the room took on an air of achievement. By the time lot 12 came to the block, the unparalleled collection of modern and contemporary art was just shy of becoming the most valuable collection ever sold at auction. When a 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Self Portrait from Andy Warhol’s final major body of work🀅 soldᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ, the sale broke a record established in 2018. And the event wasn’t halfway over.
The historic night’s final tally was 246.1 million USD. With the November 2021 sale of 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:thirty-five additional works from the col♒lection, which real🐈ized a total of $676.1 million, The Macklowe Collection reached a combined $922.2 million.
- November 2021
- May 2022
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November 2021On 15 November 2021, the highly anticipated white-glove sale of The Macklowe Collection realized a total of $676.1 million — an auction house record. Highlights of the evening included Mark Rothko’s No. 7 (1951), Albert Giacometti’s Le Ne (1949/65), Jackson Pollock’s 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Number 17, 1951 (which established a new artist record) and Cy Twombly’s monumental Untitled (2007). -
May 2022On 16 May 2022, The Macklowe Collection returned for a second white-glove sale, realizing a total of $246.1 million. The evening’s highlights included Mark Rothko’s Untitled (1960), Gerhard Richter’s 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Seestück (Seascape) (1975), Andy Warhol’s 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Self Portrait (1986), and Willem de Kooning’s Untitled (1961).
The auction opened with Warhol’s 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Blue Airmail Stamps — the first of three works by the artist — selling comfortably above its high estimate for $1.3 million. The next lot, Roy Lichtenstein’s 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Mirror #9, swelled during a tense two-way phone bidding war that ended at just over $6 million, triple the work’s high estimate. The deliberate pace was quickened during the third lot, Agnes Martin’s 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Early Morning Happiness, which saw multiple bidders jog it well above its estimate in seconds. At $5 million, only two bidders remained, and in the end the work achieved $9.9 million from a bidder in the room, riding a surge from Martin’s 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:November auction record of $17.7 million.
The top lot was Mark Rothko’s Untitled, from 1960, a critical year for the artist. The painting had never been on public display until it was exhibited earlier this month at Sotheby’s and was one of two paintings by Rothko in the collection. Sold in November for $82.5 million, No. 7 remains the second-highest-value painting by the artist. Untitled sold for $48 million.
All🍎 thirty works sold on Monday, making🐻 it the collection’s second white-glove auction.
“The record setting sale of The Macklowe Collection represents a landmark and historic event in the art market, and we are delighted to deliver such an outstanding result — testament to the quality of the collection assembled over several decades of dedicated pursuit.”
— Charles F. Stewart, Sotheby’s Chief Executive Officer
Interest in The Macklowe Collection spanned the globe, with bids coming in from thirty different countries across four continents. Asia offered a strong showing, presenting underbids on the Rotkho, Warhol’s Blue Airmail Stamps and Jeff Koons’s Popples. A collector from Japan made the winning $18.7 million bid for Warhol’s Self Portrait.
Multiple lots faced as many as six different bidders, including 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:an untitled Willem d💖e Kooning from 1961, made shortly before the artist decamped from Manhattan to East Hampton. The work achieved $17.8 million, well beyond its $7–10 million estimate. A crowd of bidders also faced off for two works by Sigmar Polke, both of which doubled their high estimates: 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Plastik-Wannen [Plastic Tubs] achieved $6.2 million and 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:The Copyist $6.1 million. (It was a strong outing for German art, given Gerhard Richter’s monumental 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:Seestück [Seascape] also sold for $30.2 million.)
Perhaps what’s most impressive about The Macklowe Collection isn’t that it set such a thrilling record, but that it did so with only several dozen artworks. Among the sixty-five exceptionally curated works constituting The Macklowe Collection, two sold f🥂or over $70 million, four sold for over $50 million, fourteen sold for over $20 million and twenty sold for over $10 million. The average lot value for the November sale was an outstanding $19.3 🤪million, and the average of the entire collection $14.2 million.
Now, following the historic 🍸auction, each masterpiece will embark on a new chapter, extending the vision of the Macklow🦂es’s prescient collecting.
![View 1 of Lot 5: Seestück [Seascape]](http://laitexier.com.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/631027d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1373+0+0/resize/330x227!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsothebys-md.brightspotcdn.com%2Fe5%2F47%2F86913d40430e9866ed5e0e504371%2F1203n10382-3yggn-02.jpg)
