After this month’s positive results at Frieze London and Art Basel Paris—and in advance of a tense US presidential election soon to be in the rear-view mirror—market watchers are no doubt hopeful that the upcoming marquee November auctions will mark the beginning of the end of this year’s weak art market. Of course, that depends on the material, the true determining factor of a good or bad auction season. So far, the auction houses have been dribbling out information online.
In terms of estates, Christie’s has the advantage with the major estate of designer, philanthropist, and collector Mica Ertegun. In addition to an evening sale featuring René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (estimated to sell for more than $95 million), as well as works by David Hockney, Joan Miró, and Ed Ruscha on November 19, Christie’s will hold a day sale of items from Ertegun’s collection on November 20.
Sotheby’s will also sell three works by Alberto Giacometti, Franz Marc, and Paul Gauguin from the Harry F. Guggenheim Collection as part of its Modern Evening Sale on November 18. Giacometti’s Buste (Tête tranchante) (Diego) is the top lot, with an estimate of $10 million to $15 million. The evening sale will also feature The Danner Memorial Window by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Agnes Northrop, from the collection of American billionaire Alan Gerry, with an estimate of $5 million to $7 million.
It’s worth mentioning that on November 11, Mark Rothko’s Untitled (Yellow and Blue) is also going on the block at Sotheby’s Hong Kong with an estimate of $29 million to $35 million. Formerly owned by US banker Paul Mellon and French luxury executive François Pinault, the painting—previously sold at auction for $46.5 million in 2015, before coming into the possession of disgraced 1MDB financier Jho Low—has both a guarantee and irrevocable bids.
While all the consignors above were known, ARTnews dug through the listings to reveal some others.
Brant’s Basquiat and a Philbrick-linked Kusama
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (1982), estimated to sell for between $20 million and $30 million, appears to have been consigned to Christie’s by the Brant Foundation, the private foundation of collector Peter Brant. The large oilstick portrait, which hits the block at Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale on November 21, was exhibited in a Basquiat retrospective at Fondation Louis Vuitton in 2018 that was a collaboration between the foundation and the Brant Foundation. In January of this year, the Brant Foundation also loaned the untitled portrait for the exhibition “In Dialogue with Picasso” at Skarstedt Gallery, according to social media posts on Instagram, X, and Facebook.
(The Brant Foundation did not respond to a request for comment by press time.)
Yayoi Kusama’s 2018 painting Infinity-Nets (RDUEL). Courtesy of Christie’s.
In the same sale is Yayoi Kusama’s bright red 2018 painting Infinity-Nets (RDUEL), a piece that has connections to disgraced dealer Inigo Philbrick. The painting was mentioned in court documents filed in 2019 between Belgian real estate agency Parfinim and the storage company UOVO over ownership. A judgment issued last month stated that the Kusama painting was jointly vested by Parfinim’s successor-in-interest and Aiden Fine Art LLC, the company for art collector Andre Sakhai, who was reportedly the godfather of Philbrick’s child. The estimate is $2 million to $3 million.
The 20th Century Evening sale will also feature Ellsworth Kelly’s Blue Tablet from the collection of ARTnews Top 200 collectors Bettina and Donald L. Bryant Jr. The estimate for the large double-panel oil painting is $4 million to $6 million. Last year, a different painting from the Bryants’ collection, Picasso’s Nu devant la glace from 1932, sold at Sotheby’s for $11 million.
Also consigned to Christie’s is Morris Louis’s Pillar of Celebration (1961), estimated to sell for $1.2 million to $1.8 million during the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day sale on November 22. The painting had been in the collection of Chicago industrialist Richard Stern, who bought it at Sotheby’s in 1983 for $242,000; at the time, it was being sold by Vincent Melzac, a former president of the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
A Christie’s spokesperson declined to comment on the consignors.
Sotheby’s has been consigned to sell Canadian realist painter Alex Colville’s Dog and Priest in its Now and Contemporary Evening Auction on November 20.
The official website for Alex Colville says the 1978 painting belongs to the National Gallery of Canada, but the museum told ARTnews it never owned it. According to Le Devoir, the owners in 2015 were philanthropist Jean Teron and real estate executive Bill Teron. Bill passed away in 2018. The estimate for Dog and Priest is $1 million to $1.5 million.
A Sotheby’s spokesperson told ARTnews it could not comment on consignors.
Two O’Keeffes
A striking Georgia O’Keeffe landscape in Christie’s 20th Century Evening sale on November 19, Lake George Autumn, comes from the Vilcek Foundation, which works to support and raise awareness of immigrants in the arts and sciences. The estimate is $3 million to $5 million, and a Christie’s spokesperson told ARTnews that proceeds from the sale are “intended to expand the Foundation’s collection of regional modernism—with a focus on artists that were significant to the American Modernist art movement, who have not been as widely celebrated.”
Georgia O’Keeffe, Lake George Autumn, 1927. Courtesy of Christie’s.
Over at Bonhams is O’Keeffe’s White Primrose, estimated to sell at the house’s November 20 evening sale for $4 million to $6 million. It’s from the Diane and Sam Stewart art collection, and was loaned to the Brigham Young University Museum of Art for an exhibition in 2009. The auction house held a single-owner sale of more than 100 works of Western art from the couple’s collection in August 2021. Sam Stewart passed away later that year, in November. The Stewart Family Foundation has also donated funds to the Utah Museum of Fine Art, Springville Museum of Art, and Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. A representative from the foundation confirmed to ARTnews that the painting belongs to Diane Stewart.
Bonham’s is also selling Camille Pissarro’s Le Pont-Royal, temps gris lumineux from the collection of Simone and Alan Hartman. The work was last sold in 1978, and a 2005 catalog of the artist’s work lists the Hartmans as the owners. Bonhams also held a large sale of Impressionism and Asian art from the Hartman collection last December. Bonhams’s estimate for Le Pont-Royal, temps gris lumineux is $800,000 to $1.2 million.
A Bonhams spokesperson told ARTnews that they had not shared the consignor of White Primrose and were not able to confirm ownership under the company’s policy. However, the spokesperson did confirm the Pissarro is from the Hartman collection.
From One Phillips to Another
Phillips has been consigned to sell Grace Hartigan’s Pond Memory (1963) with an estimate of $300,000 to $500,000. The painting was previously a promised gift from Madeline and Stephen Anbinder to the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. The couple also previously donated a “major group of mid-20th century paintings and works on paper” to the Norton Museum of Art.
Phillips Collection publicist Lauryn Cantrell confirmed to ARTnews that the Anbinders pledged gift of Pond Memory (1963) had been retracted. “This is not a case of deaccessioning,” Cantrell said in an email.
Grace Hartigan, Pond Memory (1963). Courtesy of Phillips.
Bonnie H Morrison
Promised gifts have appeared at auction before: In 2018, 65 works from the collection of Barney A. Ebsworth went on the block at Christie’s instead of going to the Seattle Art Museum. The Ebsworth sale included David Hockney’s double-portrait Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scot that music executive David Geffen had promised to the Museum of Modern Art in 1993. Ebsworth acquired the painting in 1997.
A Phillips spokesperson told ARTnews the auction house’s policy meant it could not comment on the identity of its clients.
With reporting from Harrison Jacobs and Sarah Douglas.
