Art + AuctionsSotheby’s Auction to Sell Warring Macklowe Art Collection Brings in Record $676 MillionThe court-ordered auction is the first of two to unload the notoriously divorced couple’s massive trove

By Shivani Vora

November 16, 2021

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 05: An art handler holds Frida Kahlo's final self-portrait "Diego y yo" while on display during a press preview of The Macklowe Collection at Sotheby's on November 05, 2021 in New York City.  (Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)Alexi Rosenfeld

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It was the art collection to beat all others with its impressive number of blue-chip works, and now, it’s sold: real estate developer Harry Macklowe’s and his ex-wife Linda’s five-decade-old trove of 35 masterpieces brought in $676 million on Monday evening in a court-ordered auction at Sotheby’s in New York. Sotheby’s estimated that the sale would bring in $400 million, but it far exceeded expectations and set the tone for the current market in the world of high-priced art.

The auction was the first of two to unload the Macklowe pieces and included postwar to contemporary works. If the second one in May for the remaining 30 in the collection is as successful, it will break the record for the most expensive art collection ever sold at an auction. Right now, that honor goes to late banker David Rockefeller, whose art sold for $835.1 million in 2018 at a Christie’s auction.

Harry Macklowe.

Sean Zanni

Contemporary artist Mark Rothko’s tricolor 1951 painting, No. 7, won the prize for the night for getting the highest bid. The piece sold for $82.5 million to an anonymous bidder from Asia and was the second-highest price ever paid at auction for a Rothko piece.

Other notable sales included a Cy Twombly acrylic and crayon canvas of red peonies for $58.9 million, a humanlike sculpture by Alberto Giacometti from 1965 called Le Nez for $78.4 million, and Jackson Pollock’s Number 17, 1951 for $61 million.

Pieces from artists such as Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Agnes Martin, Gerard Richter, and Philip Guston were also part of the sale and went for millions above their estimates.

Although Linda Macklowe had the most interest in art and was the one who found the majority of the works, they were a source of contention in the divorce proceedings, which ultimately led to the court-ordered auction.

The Macklowes were highly regarded collectors in art circles, according to Natasha Schlesinger, an art historian and curator and the founder of the art advisory company ArtMuse. “Their collection represents a certain period of time in art collecting and a taste at the highest level when the hot works were mostly by white male abstract artists,” she says. “Collecting today has gone into new directions, which is evident in the diverse range of styles in the marquee sales happening in the fall auction season.”

Overall, Schlesinger says that this auction gages the market in terms of how much money people are willing to spend on art, and the clear answer is that there is a healthy appetite for big-ticket pieces. “People are ready to drop money on great works, and given that at least some of the buyers were from Asia, the sale shows that there is money globally,” she says. “People are seeking and buying expensive art.”