Christie’s New York 20th and 21st Century Art sales week began on Monday 17 November 2025 with The Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis followed by the 20th Century Evening Sale, which together achieved $689,795,000 selling 96 per cent by lot and 97 per cent by value.
The energy in the sale room was palpable, with competitive bidding on the phones, in the room and online. Spontaneous applause erupted from shoulder-to-shoulder bidders periodically throughout the night as many works sailed past their estimates.
Masterworks by Mark Rothko, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and David Hockney each achieved prices in excess of $40 million. The evening saw new artist records set for Beauford Delaney and Leonor Fini, while works by John Singer Sargent and František Kupka each set a record for a single work on paper by the artist. A new record was also set for a wire sculpture by Alexander Calder.
Mark Rothko’s No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) (1958) was the top lot of the night, selling for $62,160,000. This part of the evening was led by the stunning Rothko as well as Picasso’s tender 1932 portrait of his beloved muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, which realised $45,485,000. The sale presented one of the most thoughtful private collections of 20th-century art in the United States, previously unseen for decades.
Henri Matisse’s Figure et bouquet (Tête ocre) (1937), fetched $32,260,000, soaring past its high estimate and inspiring a thoroughly positive night for the artist. Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red and Blue (1939-1941) realised $23,060,000. Max Ernst’s bronze icon of Surrealist sculpture, Le roi jouant avec la reine, conceived in 1944 and cast in 1961, fetched $20,185,000.
Directly after the Weis sale on 17 November, auctioneers Adrien Meyer and David Kleiweg de Zwaan, Senior Specialist, Impressionist and Modern Art, led the 20th Century Evening Sale. The auction realised a total of $471,728,000, selling 98 per cent by lot and 100 per cent by value.
The sale opened with John Singer Sargent’s Gondolier’s Siesta (circa 1902-1903). Well-timed to the artist’s recent exhibitions at the Musée d'Orsay and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it went for $7,395,000, more than doubling its high estimate and setting a record for a work on paper by the artist. An oil on canvas by Sargent, Capri (1878), was another triumph, sailing to $11,445,000.
Main Image: Mark Rothko’s "No. 31 (Yellow Stripe)" for $62,160,000 with fees. Courtesy Christie's