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Christie’s Wednesday Sales Achieved $162.7 Million as Bonhams’ 20th & 21st Century Evening Sale Topped $22 Million

With Hank McNeil’s Minimalist trove, Marian Goodman’s Richter collection and works by Nara, Brancusi, and Magritte on the block, New York's auction houses are delivering a May to remember.

There is very little room for error left among the major auction houses: increasingly, every consignment and sale must be executed with perfection, so that, at worst, a lot will go underestimated but still sell, particularly in the main evening sales and for headline-generating consignments. Last night, Christie's delivered another solid but less dynamic performance with its 21st-century segment compared to the eye-popping $1.1 billion result two nights prior. The evening started with Defined Space, the sale of the Minimalist art collection of Hank McNeil, followed by Marian’s Richters and the 21st Century Evening Sale, which featured a group of seminal Gerhard Richter works from the personal collection of legendary gallerist Marian Goodman. The combined total came to $162.7 million, just shy of pre-sale estimates but with a satisfying 98 percent sell-through rate. The $136.8 million total for the 21st Century Evening Sale was already 42 percent higher than last May’s sale, marking the highest total for the signature sale in five years. Together with Monday’s evening sales and Tuesday’s day sales, the running total for the week stands at $1.35 billion, nearly double last May’s marquee week total, with more to come.

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Defined Space featured 12 masterpieces of Minimal art long displayed in McNeil’s five-story residence and realized $25.9 million, closing white glove despite three lots selling below their low estimates. Two of four Donald Judd pieces failed to meet their lows, with the horizontal gold stack Untitled (1972) selling (covered by guarantees) for $4.5 million (est. $5-7 million) and the blue structure Untitled (1964) selling for $1.4 million (est. $2-3 million). Carl Andre’s Steel-Zinc Alloy Square also fell short of its $1 million low, hammering at $700,000 ($889,000 with fees).

Leading the group was one of the most coveted Judd stacks to appear at auction: a copper and red Plexiglas work from 1969 that anchored McNeil’s living room. It hammered just around its low estimate at $10.6 million ($12.8 million with fees), setting a new record for a work by Judd and ranking as the third most expensive lot of the evening. More competitive bidding followed for Fred Sandback’s Untitled (LLR of A Series of Eight Sculptures, Open Series) (1969), which sold for $139,700 against a $60,000-80,000 estimate, and Richard Artschwager’s Two-Part Invention (1967), which triggered a bidding battle in the room and over the phone, ultimately hammering at $635,000 against a $60,000-80,000 estimate. Neither lot carried a guarantee or irrevocable bids.

The opening lot, Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #1112, Square with broken bands of color, exceeded its high estimate, selling with fees for $444,500, as did Carl Andre’s 66 Copper-Carbon Corner, which surpassed its $300,000-500,000 estimate to sell for $1.1 million with fees. Later in the sale, Richard Tuttle’s 10th Cloth Octagonal (1967) also sold at its high estimate, achieving $228,600 with fees, while most........

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