Four paintings originally destined for Denver’s soon-to-open Clyfford Still Museum sold for more than $114 million Wednesday evening at Sotheby’s auction house in New York, soaring more than $42 million above the top estimates.
After commissions and other fees, the record-setting sale will net at least $85 million. The money is slated to go into an endowment fund that will help pay the museum’s bills well into the future.
“The art world spoke tonight,” said Still Museum director Dean Sobel. “The art world has recognized that Clyfford Still from a market perspective is in the top tier of American artists.”
The top seller, titled “1949-A-No. 1” — a quintessential example of the famed abstract-expressionist’s jagged, colorful style — sold for $61,682,500, nearly three times the previous record for a single Still work set in 2006. It is the fifth-highest-priced contemporary work ever sold at auction.
Still, along other abstract-expressionists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, helped shift the center of the art world from Paris to New York City in the 1940s and ’50s. The four auctioned works were bequeathed to Denver by Patricia Still, the artist’s widow, who died in 2005.
She gave both her estate and that of her husband to the city — about 2,400 works in all — with the agreement that the city would build a museum to house them. The resulting $29 million building is set to open Nov. 18.
“This is great for the city of Denver,” said Jan Brennan, director of cultural programs for Arts & Venues Denver, who was in New York for the sale. “It ensures that the collection will be properly developed and be available for the citizens of Denver and the state of Colorado and the world.”
In its November issue, Art + Auction magazine described the quartet of works, lots 11-14, as the “most impressive offering” in this week’s contemporary sales at the major auction houses in New York. And they lived up to that billing.
“Did we think they were going to do $61 million for one painting?” said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art and the sale’s auctioneer. “No, but we always felt they had the greatest auction potential, that they were really auction stars.
“And they became auction stars tonight.”
Driving the demand for Still’s works is the fact that few hit the market. About 94 percent of the works he produced will be housed in the Still Museum, and Sobel estimates that only about 40 pieces remain in private hands.
Brennan believes the attention surrounding the sale and the new record price for Still will further enhance the national profile of his museum and boost future visitorship.
“It certainly does give recognition to Clyfford Still,” she said. “There are many people who know of him, but this is part of an opportunity to make a whole new group of people aware of him — people who will be excited to travel to Denver to see the collection.”
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or email@example.com