Christie’s opens the autumn season with $28 million: records for Anni Albers, Judy Chicago and Anicka Yi

Christie’s kicked off the autumn auction season with the “Post-War to Present” sale on October 1 in New York, which brought in $28 million, as Artdaily reports. The sale closed 81% sold by value and 86% by low estimate, demonstrating — according to the auction house — the continued appetite for quality works from the post-war period.

The excitement began with the very first lot: Anni Albers’ “Study for B”, a rare work on paper, set the world auction record for the artist, selling for $166,400. The standout results continued with Judy Chicago’s “Pasadena Lifesavers Blue Series #5”, which set a new benchmark for the artist’s auction market at $486,400, and with Gerhard Richter’s “Fuji”, which broke the record for the series at $1,152,000. Anicka Yi also joined the record list: her installation “Counterfactual Imagination” sold for $83,200, now holding the artist’s world record.

The evening’s top lot was “Coastal Farms”, the River Delta landscape by the legendary Bay Area painter Wayne Thiebaud, which realised $1,856,000 — far above its initial estimate of $800,000. Exceptional prices were also achieved by Donald Judd’s red galvanised sculpture from the Barbara Jakobson collection ($1,305,600), Sam Gilliam’s sloped-edge painting “Region and Mind” ($1,024,000) and Josef Albers’ “Homage to the Square”, which sold for $960,000, more than double its $400,000 estimate.

Kathryn Marber, head of the “Post-War to Present” sale, expressed satisfaction with the result, noting the “continued strong appetites for quality post-war works, as well as the market’s enthusiasm for fresh stories and contemporary voices” — with numerous records set for women artists, including Judy Chicago, Anni Albers and Anicka Yi.