Sotheby’s New York Cross-Category Evening SaleBrings Global Sales ofImpressionist, Modern & Contemporary Art toRunning Total of More Than $2.75 Billion

With 12 Additional Sales In these Categories Still to Come in 2020
Across Sotheby’s Global Salerooms

Works by Alexander Calder and Pablo Picasso
Lead Tonight’s Auction

Demand for Works by Barkley L. Hendricks Continues to Soar at Sotheby’s
With New Auction Record of $4 Million Set Tonight

NEW YORK, 8 December 2020 – Sotheby’s final signature marquee Evening Sale of 2020 concluded earlier this evening, achieving an above estimate total of $63.3 million and bringing global sales of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s this year to a running total of over $2.75 billion*, with 12 sales in these categories still to come – in Paris, London, New York, Milan, Zurich and Hong Kong – over the course of the next two weeks.

Sale realizes $63.3 million, surpassing high estimate of $58.6 million

Global participants tonight span 23 countries

Depth in buying from Asia, including works by Alexander Calder, Mark Bradford, Matthew Wong, Josef Albers, and Claude Lalanne, account for 40.6% of the total sale value.

Following a nearly 10-minute bidding battle, Alexander Calder’s hanging mobile Mariposa soared to $18.2 million - more than double its $8 million high estimate. The work was on offer from the famed Neiman Marcus Collection, where it has remained since it was acquired in 1951.

Pablo Picasso’s Buste de Femme Assise achieved $11.2 million. Painted in 1962, the work belongs to an important series of portraits of the artist’s second wife, Jacqueline Roque, and crystalizes her image at the height of Picasso’s late career.

Barkley L. Hendricks’ Mr. Johnson (Sammy from Miami) sold for $4 million – achieving a new auction record for the artist. Sotheby’s holds the top 11 auction prices for the artist, including Yocks, sold in May 2019 for $3.7 million, and Jackie Sha-La-La (Jackie Cameron), sold here for $2.8 million only last month.

On offer from the Brooklyn Museum and sold to benefit the Museum’s Collections, Claude Monet’s Vernon, Soleil sold tonight for $4.7 million. The 1894 painting is part of a series of seven canvases focused on the Gothic church in Vernon, and is the crowning achievement from the group in which the bright light transfigures the structure of the church.