Christie’s Spring Auctions Bloom Record Sales Despite Cyber Attack

Andy Warhol’s “Flowers.” Photo: Christie’s

A security breach brought Christie’s auction house website down on the evening of May 9, just days before a week of important art auctions. While staff raced against time to solve the issue, a temporary website was set up for prospective bidders to view the auction lots. On May 19, CEO Guillaume Cerutti issued a statement confirming that the website and app were back online and apologizing for the inconvenience.

While the five online-only auctions scheduled for that week had to be postponed, the highly anticipated live auctions were still held—and still successful. Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale on May 16, featuring art by such famous figures as David Hockney, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Claude Monet, was a special standout, with bidders around the world bringing high prices, including some artist records.

Emily Kaplan, co-head of the sale, called it “a testament to the lasting power of Pop.” Sure enough, the top lot was Flowers by Andy Warhol, whose name is practically synonymous with Pop Art. After five minutes of bidding, it sold for $35.5 million. Van Gogh’s Coin de Jardin Avec Papillons was close behind at $33.2 million.

Van Gogh “Coin de Jardin Avec Papillons.” Photo: Christie’s

Three records were set at the auction. The photograph Satiric Dancer, 1926, sold for $567,000, setting an auction record for André Kertész. Alexander Archipenko’s sculpture Woman Combing Her Hair sold for $5.1 million, almost doubling the artist’s previous record set by Christie’s in 2005. Rene Magritte’s Les Grâces Naturelles sold for $3.6 million, a record price for a sculpture by the famous surrealist.

The auction brought in a total of $413.3 million.

All told, despite the cyber-attack, Christie’s concluded a successful series of six live sales for its spring marquee week of 20th/21st-century Art sales on May 18. The sales, which were led by the 20th Century Evening Sale, the 21st Century Evening Sale, and The Rosa de la Cruz Collection Evening Sale, delivered a market-leading performance, realizing a combined total of $640,219,290.

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Woman’s Flea Market Find Is Rare Painting by Van Gogh Friend 

It pays to be discerning at thrift stores! Flea market and thrift store enthusiast Katherine Mathews loves browsing at Warehouse 839, a Saco, Maine, shop that specializes in everything from estate furniture to nick-nacks. In April, she was drawn to a 13-inches-by-19-inches watercolor with the signature E.W. Brooke while rummaging through the warehouse. She paid $45 for the image of a Japanese woman and a child. On her way home, she stopped in a grocery store parking lot to look up the name on her iPad. She soon saw a Vincent van Gogh connection. The 19th-century painter Edmund Walpole Brooke shared a friendship with Vincent van Gogh just before van Gogh committed suicide in July 1890. Brooke had grown up in Japan, a place that fascinated and inspired the Dutch painter. The two went on painting trips together into the French countryside.   

“He is a very enigmatic person,” Tsukasa Kodera, a curator and professor of art history at Osaka University in Japan, said of Brooke. Kodera spent almost 10 years hunting for information about Brooke but finding a Brooke painting stymied him. At least until now. Mathews, with the help of her husband, John, made contact with Kodera after reading about his work. The professor thinks they have probably discovered that rare thing, an original Brooke. 

Kevin Keraghan, who owns the Maine shop, acquired the painting about 15 years ago from the estate sale of a family in New Hampshire. That family had originally come from California, which Kodera thought a good sign since two of Brooke’s brothers lived there. 

No value has been attached yet to the painting, which is currently being authenticated.