In a stunning performance given the climate of economic misery, Christie’s on Tuesday sold 82 postwar and Contemporary works of 91 offered, for $247.59 million. The low 10 percent failure rate was remarkable by any standard.
A world auction record was set for Roy Lichtenstein with one of his early Pop Art pictures dating from 1961. The estimate for the scene based on a cartoon, which depicts a man peeping through an opening and shouting: “I can see the whole room ... and there’s nobody in it,” was boldly set at $35 million to $45 million. The auctioneer, Christopher Burge, brought down his hammer as a $38.5 million bid came over the telephone. The price was $43.2 million with the sale charge in excess of 12 percent.
The Lichtenstein had been acquired by its unnamed American consignor at Christie’s in November 1988 for $2.1 million.
Two other records were established for Louise Bourgeois and Paul McCarthy. A monumental bronze spider by the French-born sculptor Bourgeois cast in 1966 went up to $10.72 million, making it her most expensive work ever sold on the open market. The price exceeded the highest expectations by roughly a third. It was huge for a bronze that was cast in an edition of six, following a first edition, also of six.
The records illustrate the feverish search for works held to be icons by famous artists and acknowledged as such through multiple shows in major museums. Public display in open spaces helps. Another cast of the spider was on view in 2001 on Rockefeller Plaza between Fifth and Sixth avenues, not far from Christie’s.
Astonishing as they are, even these records did not fully reflect the wave of enthusiasm that carried the room through the first hour of the session.
The first 31 lots sold without a hitch. That is a rare feat in the Contemporary Art field, where sudden fits of weakness are more likely to happen than in most other areas, if only because there are few criteria by which aesthetic achievement or quality of execution can be measured and described in straightforward terms.
A telling indication of the bullishness of buyers was the zest with which they bid on works from the Peter Norton Collection, which accounted for the first 29 lots. A majority of them fell into what spectators who are not into Contemporary Art might be led to classify as pranks.
