$44.4M art sale buoys 2 museums
Selling Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 and two other works has allowed the museum that bears her name to increase its acquisitions fund from $750,000 to nearly $50 million.
Crystal Bridges paid $44.4 million for Jimson Weed at Sotheby’s November auction. O’Keeffe Museum curator Cody Hartley attended the record-setting auction and said that when bidding on the painting, valued at $10 million to $15 million, eclipsed $20 million, he nearly “fell down in my
seat.”
“I was amazed as I watched it unfold,” Hartley said of the Nov. 20 auction. “It kept climbing and climbing and climbing. It was an amazing day. … We obviously wanted the best results imaginable. This exceeded our imagination and has now allowed us to establish a very significant acquisition fund.”
No institution has a larger collection of works by O’Keeffe. Even with more than 1,100 paintings, drawings and sculptures, adding more of O’Keeffe’s better-known pieces has been a priority for the museum in Santa Fe, N.M.
Hartley declined to say which pieces the museum is looking to buy to expand its collection, but his dream acquisitions are a much more realistic possibility now.
Crystal Bridges was one of seven bidders for Jimson Weed, an oil on canvas completed by O’Keeffe in 1932. It did not reveal itself as the buyer until announcing last week a new O’Keeffe exhibition that opens March 28.
Sotheby’s was projecting an estimated $46 million for the entire auction, and the Jimson Weed sale nearly matched the projected total. More than $75.4 million was spent that day, including 10 works that went for more than $1 million each.
Sotheby’s described Jimson Weed as “a well-know example of O’Keeffe’s celebrated flower paintings which, in turn, stand among the most recognizable images in both art history and popular culture.”
“The outstanding result for Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 places Georgia O’Keeffe’s work in the top tier of 20th century artists on the market internationally, where it has always belonged,” the head of Sotheby’s American Art department, Elizabeth Goldberg, said in a statement after the auction. “It was a particular privilege to present works on behalf of such a wonderful institution as the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. To have achieved this result just one year after Norman Rockwell’s Saying Grace set a new benchmark for this category at $46 million shows that there is an amazing appetite in today’s market for gems of American Art.”
Jimson Weed set a number of records at auction. O’Keeffe is now the highest-selling female artist, eclipsing the $11 million paid in May for Joan Mitchell’s 1960 work Untitled. Previously the highest amount paid for an O’Keeffe painting was $6.2 million at a 2001 Christie’s New York auction.
Crystal Bridges Executive Director Rod Bigelow said acquiring something from O’Keeffe’s flower series was a priority for the museum. “It was important adding Georgia O’Keeffe in a significant way,” Bigelow said when asked about spending nearly four times the original estimates for the painting.
While the November auction could have an effect on the market, it isn’t expected to substantially raise prices for all O’Keeffe works. Jim Reinish of James Reinish & Associates, a private, New York City art dealer, said the price paid for Jimson Weed won’t necessarily lead to a significant market fluctuation.
“I think it will affect the market very little, but not that much,” Reinish said. “It’s a little bit of a one-off situation. It would likely affect just major, major pictures. I don’t see another by Georgia O’Keeffe selling like that anytime soon. None of us have a crystal ball. We never know for sure what is going to happen, but it seems like maybe a bit of an outlier.”
Jimson Weed was one of three O’Keeffe pieces sold by the museum at the Sotheby’s auction. Unidentified buyers spent $5 million for On the Old Santa Fe Road and $941,000 for Untitled (Skunk Cabbage). The latter two works also sold for more than their estimated value before the auction.
All three pieces sold at Sotheby’s were similar to items already in the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum collection. Parting with them was difficult although Hartley said the museum was happy to know another public gallery purchased Jimson Weed.
Even if prices for O’Keeffe works go up across the board, Hartley said he feels the museum is well-positioned for future purchases.
“I can still buy more of those works than I could have before with no resources at all,” Hartley said. “It’s a value proposition. You could imagine $750,000 wouldn’t get me far.”
Crystal Bridges and the O’Keeffe museum have discussed the possibility of collaboration in the future. Those conversations are ongoing, but regardless of what form a collaboration might take, the two institutions will remain linked going forward, thanks to Crystal Bridges’ purchase of Jimson Weed.
“This is about sustainability of our institution,” Hartley said. “We didn’t want a pot of money we could spend once and be done with it. We wanted enough … to serve as an endowment. My successors 10, 15, 20 years down the road will still have a significant fund.”