Pollock Number 17, 1951, a work by the artist Black Paintings series which hung behind auctioneer Oliver Barker during the evening, hit a record for the artist at auction with a total sale with fees of $ 61.2 million after more than seven minutes of auction.

“I’m happy and feel very privileged,” real estate developer Harry Macklowe said after the sale. Macklowe described the works he and his ex-wife, Linda, collected for 40 years as paintings that “spoke to each other” and were “not easy art.”

At a post-sale press conference, Barker called the experience of dropping the hammer on “an unbroken series of phenomenal masterpieces” as “possibly a once-in-a-lifetime experience”.

The only sale that came close to the Macklowe collection in scale was the 2018 Peggy and David Rockefeller Collection auction, which included masterpieces by Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet, and an extensive range of decorative arts and furniture sold through six live auctions and several online sales. The entire collection reached $ 832.6 million.

The Macklowe collection is sold in two parts by Sotheby’s, with the Monday evening sale of 35 works followed by the auction of 30 more in May. The sales were sparked by a divorce settlement between the former couple.

The part sold on Monday, which had carried a pre-sale estimate between $ 440 million and $ 619 million, represents about two-thirds of the collection’s value, according to Sotheby’s. All auctioned works were guaranteed and 22 were subject to irrevocable auctions by third parties who agreed to pay a fixed amount prior to the live auction.

Nearly 70% of the works ended up selling above the upper range of pre-sale estimates, with the average lot reaching a value of $ 19.3 million, the auction house said. Several works triggered long flights of auctions, often including collectors or their auctioneers.

by Rothko No. 7, 1951, made $ 82.5 million, with honoraria after eight minutes the second-highest awarded for a work by the artist at auction. that of Giacometti The nose, made US $ 78.4 million, going to a collector in Asia, while Cy Twombly’s Untitled, 2007, a mammoth painting in acrylic and pencil on wood which was part of the Scattering of flowers series, reached nearly $ 59 million.

at Agnès Martin
Untitled # 44, 1974, reached a record auction for the artist of $ 17.7 million, with fees, more than double the high estimate of $ 8 million, after a six-minute auction between five collectors. It was a result that could change the market for the artist, said Grégoire Billault, head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s in New York, after the sale.

Artist auction records were also set for Robert Irwin’s work
Untitled, 1965-66 ($ 8.3 million), and for Michael Heizer
Track painting, 1967 (US $ 1.1 million).

Other highlights include the sale of Sigmar Polke’s
Rasterbild mit Palmen, for $ 21.5 million after lively auctions for more than five minutes. It was the second highest price for the artist’s work at auction. And two paintings by Andy Warhol sold: Sixteen Jackies, 1964, for $ 33.9 million, above a high presale estimate of $ 20 million, and Nine Marilynes, 1962, for US $ 47.4 million, within estimate ranges.