On May 14th, as part of Spring Marquee Week, Christie’s held its Evening sales at New York’s Rockefeller Center. The event included the Rosa de la Cruz Collection Evening Sale and the 21st Century Evening Sale, which amassed a combined total of $114.66 million (all prices include fees). The auction attracted bidding from attendees in person, over the phone, and online, despite a hack on the auction house’s website last week.
The top lot of the auction, from the 21st Century sale, was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s The Italian Version of Popeye has no Pork in his Diet (1982) sold for $32 million. Several artists also set new records for their works at auction. From the Rosa de la Cruz sale:
- Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Untitled (America #3) (1992) sold to The Pola Museum of Art in Hakone, Japan, for $13.6 million, setting an auction record for the artist.
- Ana Mendieta set two new auction records at the sale. First, Silueta Works in Mexico (1973–77), sold for $277,200, followed by Untitled (Serie mujer de arena / Sandwoman Series) (1983-84) which sold for $567,025. Each set a new auction benchmark for the artist.
Other records were set at the 21st Century Evening sale:
- Martin Wong’s Portrait of Mikey Piñero at Ridge Street and Stanton (1985) sold for $1.6 million, setting a new auction record for the artist.
- Diane Arbus’s Identical Twins (Cathleen and Colleen), Roselle, New Jersey (1966), sold for $1.2 million, setting a new auction record for the artist.
- Reggie Burrows Hodges’s In the Service of Others (2019) sold for $882,000, setting an auction record for the artist.
