Sculpture breaks day-old modern-art price record
Christopher Michaud

NEW YORK—A red-hot contemporary-art market notched another new price record on Wednesday, when a sculpture by David Smith sold at auction for $23.8 million and broke a mark for postwar art set just 24 hours earlier. The American artist’s large stainless-steel sculpture “Cubi XXVIII” was billed as the highlight of Sotheby’s post-war and contemporary-art auction, but it surpassed expectations when bidders drove the price to $23.8 million, including commission.
That was nearly twice the high-end estimate. The sale broke the record for a single piece of post-World War Two or contemporary art, set on Tuesday when Mark Rothko’s painting “Homage to Matisse” sold at Christie’s for $22.4 million. The previous record had held firm since 1989. The price for the Smith sculpture contributed to the sale’s total take of $114.5 million, which exceeded the high estimate of $108 million.
“It was the best contemporary-art sale we’ve ever had,” said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art and the evening’s auctioneer. He cited the “depth of bidding” and “global buying” as factors contributing to the strong prices. The price for the Smith sculpture was nearly five times the artist’s previous record, also set just a day earlier. Smith died in 1965 shortly after he completed the work, which evokes a gate or an arch.
The auction capped two weeks of successful sales at Sotheby’s and rival Christie’s, which dominate the top echelons of the auction world. Most of the auctions topped their high-end pre-sale estimates, something that has not occurred in recent memory. Works by other artists, including Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly also sold well, with the record for Twombly broken twice, first by the painting “Untitled (Rome)” which sold for $7.97 million, then by “Untitled (New York City)” which fetched $8.7 million, far above the old mark of $5.6 million.
Warhol’s “Jackie Frieze,” a series of 13 silkscreens of presidential widow Jacqueline Kennedy in mourning, rendered in white or varying shades of blue, sold for $9.2 million. Another iconic image, 1964’s “Flowers,” sold for $6.7 million, beating the high estimate. Other artists whose work broke records included Hiroshi Sugimoto, Francis Alys, Vija Celmins and Louise Bourgeois, whose “Spider” sculpture sold for just over $3 million, doubling her record. Damien Hirst also set a record for a painting, while Warhol’s mark for sculpture was broken as well.