Pandemics upend auction format

● Art traditionally comes to auction as a result of the three D’s: death, debt and divorce. This season, an additional D played a major role: deaccessioning, or sales, by museums.

An assortment of works from the Brooklyn Museum generated $19.9m at Sotheby’s sale on Wednesday, led by a mid-century dining table and a Claude Monet landscape. A monumental abstract painting by Helen Frankenthaler from the Palm Springs Art Museum surpassed estimates, selling for $4.7m.

But the biggest fireworks erupted over the lots that weren’t offered, including a pair of paintings from the Baltimore Museum of Art that were pulled just two hours before the auction.

The pandemic has upended the decadesold auction format and schedule. The big traditional November sales in New York have been replaced by smaller events in October and December, with live auctions giving way to live-streaming spectacles. Sotheby’s said it drew almost one million viewers to its Impressionist, modern and contemporary art auction on Wednesday, which was broadcast from New York, London and Hong Kong and brought in a total of $283.9m.

Ron Perelman’s Grande femme I by Alberto Giacometti, offered privately with a minimum bid of $90m, found a buyer, though Sotheby’s declined to comment on the acquirer’s identity or the price. Perelman’s Femme de Venise IV, also by Giacometti, which was supposed to go to auction with an estimate of $14m to $18m, was pulled last minute following a private sale, Sotheby’s said.

Perelman’s third Giacometti, Femme Leoni , was the most expensive object of the evening, selling for $25.9m, within the expected range.