A Century of Art: The Gerald Fineberg Collection Part I Evening Sales Total $153,053,300

Christie’s continued its 20th and 21st Century Spring Marquee Week auctions with a strong showing for A Century of Art: The Gerald Fineberg Collection Part I, a result that confirmed the prescient taste and sensitive eye of one of the great collectors of last half century. Records were broken for women artists and for artists of color, continuing a trend of the past several seasons. The evening achieved $153,053,300, bringing the total for the Spring Marquee Week to $878,066,496, with a final sale remaining, A Century of Art: The Gerald Fineberg Collection Part II beginning tomorrow at 10AM. This evening’s auction was 91% sold by lot, and 77% hammer against low estimate.  

The highest priced lots of the sale reflected the diversity of Gerald Fineberg’s interests, with pieces from the 1950s through 1990s achieving strong numbers in a sale of works that spanned a century. The top lot of the evening was Christopher Wool’s Untitled, selling for $10,070,000. There were notable results for Gerhard Richter’s Badende, which sold for $9,610,000; Pablo Picasso’s Buste d’homme lauré making $8,460,000; a Joan Mitchell abstraction Untitled brought $6,584,000. 

Christie’s achieved five new records in total, the majority for female artists: Alma Thomas, Jo Baer, and Alina Szapocznikow. Two were set by artists of color, notably Barkley Hendricks, whose portrait of Stanley Whitney sold for $6,100,000 after more than six minutes of competitive bidding. 

Sara Friedlander, Deputy Chairman of Post-War and Contemporary Art, said, “Jerry Fineberg would have reveled in this evening, which showed how far ahead of the curve he was in his collecting evidenced by the multitude of world record prices set by artists, many of whom have never appeared in an evening sale at Christie’s. It was an honor to know Jerry, and to share his taste, his passion, and his gloriously varied collection with the world. We look forward to his Part II sale tomorrow as well as future sales in Design, Photography and Contemporary Art.” 

Spring Marquee Week Sales continues at Thursday, May 18 at 10AM: A Century of Art: The Gerald Fineberg Collection Part II  

Founded in 1766, Christie’s is a world-leading art and luxury business. Renowned and trusted for its expert live and online auctions, as well as its bespoke private sales, Christie’s offers a full portfolio of global services to its clients, including art appraisal, art financing, international real estate and education. Christie’s has a physical presence in 46 countries, throughout the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific, with flagship international sales hubs in New York, London, Hong Kong, Paris and Geneva. It also is the only international auction house authorized to hold sales in mainland China (Shanghai).

Christie’s auctions span more than 80 art and luxury categories, at price points ranging from $200 to over $100 million. Christie’s has sold 8 of the 10 most important single-owner collections in history, including the Paul G. Allen Collection—the most valuable collection ever offered at auction (November 2022). In recent years, Christie’s has achieved the world record price for an artwork at auction (Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, 2017), for a 20th century artwork (Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, 2022) and for a work by a living artist (Jeff Koons’ Rabbit, 2019). 

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Recent innovations at Christie’s include the groundbreaking sale of the first NFT for a digital work of art ever offered at a major auction house (Beeple’s Everydays, March 2021), with the unprecedented acceptance of cryptocurrency as a means of payment. As an industry leader in digital innovation, Christie’s also continues to pioneer new technologies that are redefining the business of art, including use of hologram technology to tour life-size 3D objects around the world, and the creation of viewing and bidding experiences that integrate augmented reality, global livestreaming, buy-now channels, and hybrid sales formats. 

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