Blue-chip gets a boost, but edgier art remains in the doldrums

New York’s May marquee auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s signaled renewed strength at the blue-chip end of the art market after a couple of slow years, fueled by major estate consignments and third-party guarantees. Christie’s led with a roughly $450 million consignment from the estate of media magnate S.I. Newhouse, where Jackson Pollock’s 1948 drip painting Number 7A sold for $181 million (with fees) and Constantin Brâncuși’s Danaïde (around 1913) sold for $108 million, both setting new auction records for the artists. Sotheby’s saw Mark Rothko’s 1957 Brown and Blacks in Reds, from dealer Robert Mnuchin’s estate, sell for $85.7 million, also backed by a third party. Despite many $30 million-plus estimates for 20th-century names, auction supply of under-40 “red-chip” artists was thin—Sotheby’s had two such lots in a 45-lot sale, Christie’s had one in a 31-lot sale, and Phillips’s only under-40 lot was Anna Weyant’s Dinner (2019), which sold for $980,400—reflecting weaker demand for cutting-edge work in a volatile economy, according to adviser Matthew Stephenson.

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