Christie’s held a two-part evening sale on May 20, featuring 42 lots from the estate of dealer Marian Goodman and the single-owner collection of Henry S. McNeil Jr. The auction achieved a hammer total of $132 million ($162.6 million with fees), just above the low end of its pre-sale estimate. The top lot was Donald Judd’s untitled plexiglass and copper stack sculpture, which sold for $12.8 million with fees, setting a new record for a Judd stack at auction. A surprise standout was Richard Artschwager’s Two-Part Invention (1967), which hammered at $500,000—more than six times its high estimate. The McNeil collection achieved a white-glove sale, while all but two of the eight Gerhard Richter works from the Goodman collection were guaranteed by third parties.
The sale underscores the resilience of the high-end art market, with a 42% increase in total for Christie’s 21st century evening sale compared to last May, and the highest such total in five years. However, tepid bidding for mid-tier works and reliance on third-party guarantees for key lots suggest a cautious market. The strong performance of Minimalist works from the McNeil collection and the steady demand for Richters from the Goodman estate highlight the enduring appeal of blue-chip postwar and contemporary art, even as speculative fervor has cooled.