A Jackson Pollock painting formerly owned by media magnate S. I. Newhouse, once one of the world’s most formidable art collectors, sold at Christie’s on Monday night for a hammer price of $157 million, breaking the Abstract Expressionist artist’s auction record. With fees, the total was brought to $181.2 million.
The work started with a $82 million bid and recieved over 60 bids, from bidders represented by three specialists as well as two bidders in the room. The winning bid of $157 million, which came after a spirited 10 minute bidding war that saw auctioneer Adrien Meyer counting up the bids in $1 million increments barely above a whisper, went to a buyer represented by Christie’s global president Alex Rotter.
Number 7A, a large-scale drip painting dating to 1948, carried a $100 million estimate upon request going into the sale, placing it well above the artist’s previous highs. In 2021, the 1951 painting Number 17, 1951 sold at Sotheby’s New York for $61 million, just under double its high estimate. The work at Christie’s is considerably larger than Number 17, measuring nearly 11 feet long compared to Number 17’s square dimension, just under 5 feet. Both works were oil and enamel on canvas, marked primarily by black paint.
The next three results for Pollock are $58 million for Number 19, achieved in 2013; $55.4 million for Composition with Red Strokes in 2018; and $54 million for Number 31 in 2022, all set at Christie’s New York.
Aside from its size, which Christie’s claims is the largest drip painting still in private hands, Number 7A stands out for its exceptional provenance, having come from the collection of the late Newhouse and his wife Victoria, who both regularly appeared on ARTnews Top 200 collector list. They were reputed to have spent as much as $700 million on their art holdings. Newhouse died in 2017, and his family tapped art adviser Tobias Meyer, previously principal auctioneer at Sotheby’s, to help decide its fate, according to the New York Times.
In a statement announcing the sale at Christie’s, Meyer touted Newhouse as the most discerning of collectors, calling him “fearless in editing his collection. He owned the most important paintings by the most important artists, selling at times, buying things back at others, over many years of study and rigor putting together a collection without parallel,” Meyer said.
Prior to Newhouse, the painting was originally owned by photographer Herber Matter, who was gifted the work by Pollock. It then passed to collectors Kimiko and John Powers, before selling to Newhouse. It was last seen by the public in 1977 at the Whitney Museum.
