More Consigners to the New York Sales, Revealed!

With the US presidential election behind us and the marquee New York evening sales just a few days away, collectors, advisors, and all manner of art world professionals have been combing through the full list of auction house offerings, ARTnews included. 

This November, works by art historical heavyweights David Hockney, Ed Ruscha, Ellsworth Kelly, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Jean Michel Basquiat (of course) take the stage behind auctioneers who hope to coax out as many bids as possible from buyers in the room, on the phones, and watching online from across the globe. 

ARTnews has already revealed a number of the consignors behind this season’s biggest lots, including Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (1982), courtesy of the Peter Brant’s Brant Foundation, and Yayoi Kusama’s 2018 picture Infinity-Nets (RDUEL), which has ties to disgraced art dealer and forthcoming biopic subject Inigo Philbrick.

But there is always more to learn. Further investigating has revealed more names of collectors that we believe to be unloading while interest rates are (relatively) good. And while high-net-worth individuals have cut back their spending over the last 12 months, we are in a “collector’s market,” according to many market-watchers. If the work is good enough, the bidders are sure to raise their paddles. 

The first lot at Sotheby’s The Now and Contemporary evening sale, Yu Nishimura’s 2020 work Pause, seems to come from the esteemed collection of Dallas collectors Howard and Cindy Rachofsky. The work was featured as part of the Allan Schwartzman-curated show “Open Storage: 25 Years Of Collecting” which ran from August 26, 2022 – April 29, 2023, at the Rachofskys’ contemporary art space in Dallas, The Warehouse. The Rachofsky’s did not return a request for comment, while a Sotheby’s spokesperson told ARTnews that “as a policy, we don’t comment on consignors’ identity since that’s confidential.”

While that was the only lot at Sotheby’s previously unearthed, a healthy rummage through the lots offered during Christie’s 20th Century evening sale was much more fruitful. 

The Brant Foundation appeared again, this time as the most likely consignor of Dan Flavin’s 1964 work alternate diagonals of March 2, 1964 (to Don Judd). The piece, which is comprised of five daylight fluorescent lights is expected to sell for between $1 million and $2 million. Brant also appears to be behind the sale of a Roy Lichtenstein portrait of one of America’s illustrious Founding Fathers, George Washington (1962). The black and white portrait shows General Washington in a rather coy mood, a smirk drawn across the lips just above an impossibly square jaw. Whatever would Washington think of politics today? One can only guess.

Speaking of foundations, the Calder Foundation appears to be selling Alexander Calder’s radiant mobile Sumac VI (1952) with an estimate of $5 million to $7 million. The sheet metal and wire sculpture is painted in a deep red that brings to mind the crisp fall air and falling leaves of the season. Sumac VI was last publicly on view at Mnuchin Gallery in 2018. 

An exquisite print of Ansel Adams’s Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico 1941 comes with an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000 and appears to come from the MFA Boston’s Lane Collection, a gift over 6,000 works made by William H. and Saundra Lane in 2012. (The museum features the work in its materials on the gift.) A recent sale at Sotheby’s, Ansel Adams: A Legacy | Photographs from the Meredith Collection, had a 100 percent sell-through rate which hints at increased interest in the photography market, especially in Adams’s work.

A 1976 painting by Susan Rothenberg, United States II that depicts the outline of a considerably large horse looks to have been put up for sale by ARTnews Top 200 collectors Don and Bettina Bryant. The picture, last exhibited in a 2022 Hall Art Foundation show, is a study in negatives: the steed’s front half is outlined in white on a black background, while its hind legs and haunch are outlined in black strokes on white. At 70 inches tall the picture is taller than your average Clydesdale, and while it carries a $1 million – $1.5 million estimate, more than ten times the price of a real show horse, it will cost considerably less to feed, water, and keep stabled.

Who says art isn’t a good investment? (The proposed consignors responded to a request for comment. Christie’s told ARTnews the don’t comment on clients.)

Additional reporting from Karen K. Ho, Harrison Jacobs, and Sarah Douglas.