The top lot was Francis Bacon\u2019s Study for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne and George Dyer (1967), which hammered at $13.5m ($16m with fees) on a high estimate of $18m. It was followed by an untitled work by Joan Mitchell from 1957-58 which hammered at $12m ($14.3m with fees) against a $15m high estimate.<\/p>\n
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Cera, the juvenile Triceratops Courtesy Phillips<\/p>\n
Early in the evening, a juvenile Triceratops skeleton from the Late Cretaceous period (roughly 66 million years ago) hammered at $4.35m ($5.4m with fees) against a high estimate of $3.5m. Called Cera, the fossil went to a client on the phone with natural history consultant Christian Link after 14 bids between Link; Phillips\u2019 chairman of private sales Meity Heiden; director of private sales Alexander Weinstock; and Scott Nussbaum, the auction house\u2019s deputy chairman for the Americas and senior international specialist for Modern and contemporary Art.<\/p>\n
Female artists did well, especially for works that started the sale. Ruth Asawa\u2019s copper wire sculpture Untitled (S.230, Hanging Single-Lobed, Five-Layered Continuous Form within a Form) kicked off the sale with high energy, prompting two dozen bids over more than four minutes to hammer at $780,000 (more than $1million with fees) on a high estimate of $600,000. Another Asawa work, Untitled (S.443, Hanging Single-Lobed, Five-Layered Continuous Form within a Form) also prompted 20 bids over two minutes and sold for $903,000 on a high estimate of $500,000.<\/p>\n
Lester said she wasn\u2019t surprised by the results, given the artist\u2019s critically-acclaimed current exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York after the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and limited supply in the primary market. \u201cThey\u2019re very hard to get and very expensive to get from Zwirner,\u201d Lester said, adding Asawa is \u201ca universally appealing artist\u201d.<\/p>\n
The second lot was Olga De Amaral\u2019s 5-foot-long Alquimia 62 (1987) from the estate of Samuel J. and Eleanor T. Rosenfeld, which also prompted 21 bids, hammering at $580,000 or $748,200 with fees, on a high estimate of $500,000.<\/p>\n
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Firelei B\u00e1ez\u2019s Daughter of Revolutions (2014) Courtesy Phillips<\/p>\n
That momentum continued for the third lot, Firelei B\u00e1ez\u2019s Daughter of Revolutions (2014), which set a new record for the artist after hammering for $500,000, or $645,000 with fees, on a high estimate of $500,000. It also had a house guarantee and irrevocable bids. However, that record would only last a few hours\u2014B\u00e1ez\u2019s 2021 painting Untitled (Colonization in America, Visual History Wall Map, Prepared by Civic Education Service) sold for more than $1.1m with fees, at Christie\u2019s 21st Century evening sale<\/a> on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n An untitled acrylic work on paper by Alma Thomas also sold for $477,300 including fees on a high estimate of $350,000. And an untitled artwork by Martha Jungwirth from 2017 sold for $516,000 with fees on a high estimate of $300,000.<\/p>\n A notable exception to the evening was an untitled painting by Jad\u00e9 Fadojutimi from 2022, with an estimate of $800,000 to $1.2m. After five bids, it was bought in. The other item that did not sell was The Thunderbolt, the longest gold nugget ever found at nearly 50 centimeters long. The 114.6 troy ounces (3,565 grams) of crystallised precious metal had an estimate of $1.3m to $1.5m, but was bought in after five bids. (Another gold object, Maurizio Cattelan\u2019s America (2016), also failed to capture wide interest, selling for $10m<\/a> ($12.1m with fees) after one bid to Ripley\u2019s Believe It or Not!<\/a>)<\/p>\n Lots that exceeded their high estimates included Mark Tansey\u2019s Revelever (2012), Max Ernst\u2019s Dans les rues d’Ath\u00e8nes (1960) and Robert Motherwell\u2019s A Sculptor’s Picture, with Blue (1958), two of which prompted extended bidding wars.<\/p>\n Revelever (2012) hammered at $3.76m ($4.6m with fees) on a high estimate of $3.5m after 24 bids over seven minutes, involving two people in the room and three specialists on the phone, prompting applause at the end; while A Sculptor’s Picture, with Blue (1958) hammered at $950,000 ($1.2m with fees) against a high estimate of $1m.<\/p>\n Max Ernst\u2019s Dans les rues d’Ath\u00e8nes (1960) Courtesy Phillips<\/p>\n The most intense bidding war of the evening was for Dans les rues d’Ath\u00e8nes (1960), which saw in 31 bids over seven minutes between five Phillips staffers competing for their respective clients. Dans les rues d’Ath\u00e8nes hammered at $1.2m ($1.5m with fees), blasting past its high estimate of $600,000. The bronze sculpture came from the family of American artist Dorothea Tanning, and one of the other five editions is in the permanent collection at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure they knew that interest was far outstripping the estimate and it would do well,\u201d Lester says. \u201cI think it goes to show how that historical material that has shown the test of time is safe and there are always buyers for art even in a down market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After successful sales at Christie\u2019s and Sotheby\u2019s this week, Phillips Modern and Contemporary Evening Sale on Wednesday (20…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[22078,20023,9,11,10,22081],"class_list":{"0":"post-46209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-art-market","9":"tag-auctions","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-phillips"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/18bb02d05dc6a5e60d779ccf8be2b1e0f995383b-1500x1500.png\"\/)
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