The Opening Night sale also included two photographs by Richard Avedon which sold for over $150,000 and an Irving Penn Vogue cover image of Jean Patchett from 1950 which sold for $126,000.
Other significant photographs by Annie Leibovitz, Horst P. Horst, Edward Burtynsky, Joel Brodsky, Henri Cartoier-Bresson, Ansel Adams, Herb Ritts, and Shirin Neshat were also a part of John’s Atlanta collection and found buyers at the online sessions of the auction sale.
Canvases Sell Through
Keith Haring, Untitled, 1982. Enamel on wood. Photo: Christie’s
The highest-selling lot of the evening was Flower Thrower Triptych, a three-canvas iteration of Banksy’s well-travelled bouquet-throwing masked activist. The 2017 work sold for $1,925,500, comfortably above its high estimate of $1,500,000. A couple of untitled Keith Haring works from 1982 rounded out the top-three auction results, fetching $756,000 and $529,200, respectively.
Other notable contemporary artists who were part of John’s collection included Tracey Emin, Julian Schnabel, and Andres Serrano. Emin’s anti-war And That’s How I Feel (2004) reached a sale price of $138,600 against a high estimate of $120,000. Schnabel’s performances were slightly lackluster. His 1997 Portrait of Elton, which was gifted to John, realized a price of $189,000, under the low estimate of $200,000. Another 1997 Schnabel work that John acquired directly from the artist, I’m a girl in your head and a boy in your bed, inched across the threshold of its low estimate of $80,000 with a sale price of $100,800. The decision to sell works that had clearly been personally made for John may have tempered enthusiasm amongst buyers. Just before the marquee event, a heart-shaped Damien Hirst that had been signed by the artist with a “thank you” note to John and David Furnish was pulled from the sale. Although no reason was given for the withdrawal, personalized gifts from artists are filled with sentimental value and selling them could be viewed as lacking in courtesy.
Damien Hirst, Your Song, 2008. Butterflies, cubic zirconia, scalpel blades, pills, diamond dust and household gloss on canvas. Photo: Christie’s
As for Serrano, who is best known for producing images tinged with a quasi-blasphemous blend of eroticism and religiosity, his diptych of Cibachrome prints, Hercules punishing Diomedes (part I and II), 1990, sold for $25,200, right around its high estimate of $25,000. His St. Michael’s Blood Parts I and II, 1990, performed better, pulling in $54,180, well over its estimate range of $20,000 – $30,000.
The Sir Elton John Collection also notably included a couple of Straight Lines in All Directions canvases by Sol Lewitt, a neon “Horny” sign by David LaChapelle, circa 2003, which skyrocketed past its estimate of $1,500 to sell for $26,460, and an abstract canvas by Derek Jarman entitled Topsy Turvey from 1993 which blasted through its high target of $12,000 to reach a final sale price of $52,920.
