: -Christie's conducted a recent sale of prints and multiples
totaling nearly $5 million with 90 percent sold by dollar. The
sale added one more result to a year that had already been
flamboyant on the print front.
The $6.2 million achieved by the memorable sale "Picasso: Themes
and Variations" organized in April, and the results of three
other prints sales held in spring and fall, bring the 2003 total
of the print department to $17,348,317.
The recent sale offered 379 lots, of which 323 sold for
$4,843,287. Prices quoted include the buyer's premium.
Immediately after the sale, Kelly Troester, head of the print
department stated, "A packed salesroom and active phone bidders
contributed to a great result today."
"Target," Jasper Johns, $119,500.
The top lot of the sale was the Marc Chagall folio of
lithographs entitled "Cirque," comprising 23 unsigned lithos in
colors and 15 unsigned lithos in black. Chagall completed the set
in 1967. The set had been estimated at $120/160,000, but an
American private buyer took the lot for $214,700.
Max Beckmann's "Group Portrait, Eden Bar," was a woodcut executed
in 1923. It sold to an American dealer for $141,900
($150/250,000). A private collector purchased "Target," a 1974
screen print in colors by Jasper Johns, for $119,500
($100/150,000).
An Andy Warhol screen print in colors of Marilyn Monroe from 1967
sold far above estimate for $95,600 ($28/32,000) to an American
private buyer. Barnett Newman's untitled lithograph of 1961
brought $83,650 on an estimate of $40/50,000.
"Marilyn Monroe," Andy Warhol, $95,600.
Another winner at the auction was Edward Hopper's "American
Landscape," a 1920 etching that had been estimated at $30/40,000.
It sold for $77,675. An American dealer purchased "La Femme au
Chapeau" a 1963 linocut in colors by Pablo Picasso. It sold within
its $70/90,000 estimate.
David Hockney's lithograph and screen print in colors with
collage of "An Image of Celia" also sold within its $70/90,000
estimate at $71,700. Marc Chagall's "Bible," a complete set of
105 etchings from 1956, brought $71,700 ($30/40,000).
A German dealer purchased David Hockney's 16 signed and numbered
etchings "A Rake's Progress" of 1961 $65,000 ($40/50,000).
