The evening opened with the white-glove sale of the Collection of David M. Solinger - a collection fully reflective of David M. Solinger’s central role in the art and artistic community of his time.

Later in the evening, works from the collection of broadcasting pioneer and former MoMA Chairman, William S. Paley generated further competition, as did masterpieces such as that by Piet Mondrian. Please see summary below:

Overarching Fact & Figures from Tonight’s Sales: The evening’s sales together totaled $391.2 million (est. $318.7 - 405.5m)

The David M. Solinger Collection realized an above estimate, $137.9m (est. $86.7-118m). All the works found a buyer tonight, and 61% of the works sold for prices in excess of their high estimates.Modern Evening Auction realized $253.3 (est. $232-287.5m)Across the two sales88% of all lots found buyers9 works sell in excess of $10 millionTop Prices of the Evening:Piet Mondrian: new auction record set for the artist with Composition No. II from 1930 selling for $51m to a collector from Asia (est. in excess of $50m)Pablo Picasso: a rare to market Cubist work, Guitare sur une table sold for $37.1m (est. in excess of $25m), from the collection of William S. Paley.Willem de Kooning: his Collage from 1950, makes a record for a work on paper by the artist, selling for $33.6m (est. $18-25m)Alberto Giacometti: whose Trois hommes qui marchent (Grand plateau), from the collection of David M. Solinger, realized $30.2m (est $15-20m)Henry Moore: as Reclining Figure: Festival from 1951 became the second highest price for the artist at auction, at $31 million (est. $30-40m)Freshness of material: All but one work from the Collection of David M. Solinger made its auction debut in tonight’s sale. In the Modern Evening sale, more than half of the lots had never before been offered at auction, while a third of the works had been off the market for more than 30 years.New benchmarks established for: Piet Mondrian, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning (for a work on paper)Appetite from collectors in Asia remains strong, taking home works by Piet Mondrian ($51m),Alexander Calder ($8.5m); Joan Miró ($17.8m), Augustine Rodin ($2.3m), and were active bidders on numerous lots including works by Tamara de Lempicka, Andrew Wyeth, Pablo Picasso andMarc ChagallAmerican collectors were out in force, acquiring at least half the value of the Modern Evening saleA number of works were pursued by more than 10 biddersNearly 4 million total worldwide views for both livestreams 

The Collection of David M. Solinger

Collectors demonstrated their appreciation for tonight’s offering of 23 masterworks from the pioneering collection of David M. Solinger — a jewel of a collection, put together by this fascinating figure who was so central to the New York art scene in the heady days of the 1950s.

Close to many of the leading gallerists and artists of his time, David M. Solinger also played a transformative role as President of the Whitney museum, helping shape its extraordinary collection, and masterminding the development of the now landmark Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue.

At a moment when the two creative capitals of Paris and New York vied for cultural dominance, David M. Solinger brought together seminal works from the two great epicenters of Modern art. Tonight, leading American artists of the time were presented alongside their French contemporaries, many of whom were appearing tonight for the first time on the New York Evening auction stage, including Georges Mathieu and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva.

Standout results

Alberto Giacometti’s Trois hommes qui marchent (Grand plateau), which David M. Solinger first saw on a visit to the artist’s studio in 1951, sold to a buyer in the room for $30.2 million after a seven-minute bidding battle (est. $15-30m). Hand-painted by the artist at David M. Solinger’s request, the work is the only cast of this sculpture to have been hand-painted by the artist.Willem de Kooning’s 1950 Collage, complete with thumbtacks and pieces of torn paper that illustrate the artist’s working process, achieved $33.6 million - a new auction record for a work on paper by the artist (est. $18-25m). David M. Solinger was among the first collectors to recognize de Kooning’s greatness.Joan Miró’s Femme, étoiles - painted on the day that signalled the end of the Second World War - sold for $17.8 million (est. $15-20m). Alexander Calder’s dynamic Sixteen Black with a Loop, which David M. Solinger acquired just three years after the work was created, was pursued by eight bidders before selling to an Asian collector for a double high estimate $8.5 million (est. $3-4m)Three works by Jean Dubuffet spanning two crucial decades of the artist’s career, totaled $12.3 million - against a combined pre-sale estimate of $6.7-9.3m. The artist’s 1967 Épisode led the group, realizing $5.1 million (est. $3.5-4.5m)

Modern Evening Auction

The William S. Paley Collection

This evening’s sale was highlighted by works from the William S. Paley Collection, sold to benefit a number of charitable organizations which were close to William S. Paley’s heart. Among them, a new endowment at MoMA, established by the Paley Foundation to support the museum’s goals in digital media and technology and to provide for new acquisitions.

Led by Pablo Picasso’s Guitare sur une table (1919) which, in its first auction appearance in more than seven decades, sold for $37.1 million - making it one of the most valuable works of Cubist art by the artist ever sold at auction (est. in excess of $25m).Works from the collection tonight achieved an above combined estimate of $47 million (est.$33.7-37m). Further works from the collection will be offered across sales throughout this week.

Collectors vie for rare works by pioneering women artists:

Tamara de Lempicka’s Portrait de Romana de la Salle sold for $14.1 million - the second highest price for the artist at auction (est. $10-15m)In her first evening auction appearance, Elaine de Kooning’s large-scale canvas, Charge,surpassed its high estimate to sell for a record $1.1m (est. $400,000-600,000)Visita al cirujano plástico by Remedios Varo sold for $3.1 million, becoming one of the most valuable works by the famed Surrealist artist to sell at auction (est.$2-3m).

An Auction First for Fine Art and NFTs

Remedios Varo’s Visita al cirujano plástico, one of the most explicitly autobiographical and pointedly political works in the artist’s oeuvre, became the first work of fine art auctioned by Sotheby’s to be accompanied by a MIRAImage™ NFT.MIRAImage™ NFT is a unique digital identifier linked to a physical object using novel microscopic 3D scanning technology and advanced mathematical techniques that extract the object's identifying “DNA.” Once the scan is generated, an NFT is minted by MIRA to the Ethereum blockchain, forever recording these micron-level details.Benefitting from the technology behind NFTs, the buyer of the painting will receive the unique and immutable encrypted digital signature along with cataloging information so that any future collector will be assured of its history of ownership. This first-of-its-kind sale was made possible with the assistance of Professor Luis-Martin Lozano, one of the world’s foremost experts on Mexican modernism and Remedios Varo.