Hopper, de Kooning, Gorky and Stella hit new auction records in New York

Part One of Christie’s sale of An American Place: The Barney A. Ebsworth Collection totaled $317,801,250, a vigorous start to the two-day dedicated sale of the travel entrepreneur’s exceptional collection of 20th Century American art. The sale was 88% sold by lot, and 99% sold by value. Highlights of the collection include Edward Hopper’s Chop Suey, 1929, the most important work by the artist still in private hands, which achieved $91,875,000, a record for the artist and the category of American Art. Willem de Kooning’s Woman as Landscape also set an artist record at $68,937,500, and Jackson Pollock’s Composition with Red Strokes sold for $55,437,500. Additional auction records were achieved for the following artists: Arshile Gorky, John Marin, Joseph Stella, Gaston Lachaise, Tom Otterness, Leon Polk Smith, Suzy Frelinghuysen, George Tooker, David Smith, Francis Criss, Charles Green Shaw, and Patrick Henr