By Carter B. Horsley

This evening auction of Contemporary Art November 11, 2003 at Christie's is highlighted by two rare works by Clyfford Still, two excellent paintings by Franz Kline, a beautiful late work by Willem de Kooning, two Mark Rothkos, a good Lee Bontecou, an amusing Roy Lichtenstein, an excellent Joan Mitchell, an impressive Lee Krasner, and two "numbers" paintings by Jasper Johns.

Clyfford Still (1904-1980) is regarded as a seminal and very important Abstract Expressionist painter and his works seldom appear at auction. There are two in this auction, both from the estate of John Stephan, who had been an artist, a poet and the editor of The Tiger's Eye, an avant-garde art journal.

Lot 23, "1945-R," is a 34 1/2-by-31 1/2-inch oil on canvas that Still painted in 1945. Still was introduced to Mark Rothko in 1943 and in 1945 Rothko introduced him to Peggy Guggenheim who gave him an exhibition at her Art of This Century Gallery. "1945-R is one of Still's first fully realized and individual works. Like Rothko, once Still came up with the essential ingredients of his mature style, he would mine its possibilities, with little deviation, for the rest of his life....1945-R is unrivaled in its expressive power and movement. Its cutting, flame-like forms swirl around the left edge of the canvas threatening to envelop the smaller white form that floats at the right. Still's paintings are abstract dramas, invested with incantory power," the catalogue entry maintains. It has an estimate of $1,200,000 to $1,600,000. It sold for $1,911,500 including the buyer's premium as do all results mentioned in this article. The sales price set a world auction record for the artist, one of 11 set in a very successful auction. The previous auction record for Still was $1,710,750 set at Sotheby's May 17, 2000.

Lot 24, "1950-T," is a 55-by-44-inch oil on canvas that Still painted in 1950. "1950-T shows the artist's signature painterly facility, with its characteristic facture that is applied with a scrapping and cutting palette knife rather than laid down with a brush. His technique worked at perfect sync with his subject matter that intimates rock faces, flames and rugged natural forms. Despite the obvious references, Still resisted having his paintings seen in the context of nature....What truly sets Still apat from his contemporaries and indeed from most artists is his awe-inspiring spatial relationships," the catalogue noted. It has an estimate of $1,200,000 to $1,600,000. It sold for $1,183,500, and some art experts at the auction attributed the relatively low price to the fact that it was a dark, esoteric work that had been on the market over the past six months.

Christopher Burge, the honorary chairman of Christie's and the evening's auctioneer, described the auction as a "rip-roaring evening." "There was so much furious bidding left and right, it was really amazing," he said, adding that it indicated "an incredibly strong market." The auction total of $62,007,700 was at the high end of the pre-sale estimates that ranged from a low of $50,320,000 to a high of $63,550,000. 84 percent of the 68 offered lots were sold and more than half of the offered lots sold above their high estimates, a remarkably statistic.

Exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art in 1997 (see The City Review article), Lot 32, "Untitled XVII," is a very beautiful and lyrical late work by Willem de Kooning (1904-1997). An oil on canvas that measures 80 by 70 inches, it was painted in 1984. It has a modest estimate of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000. It sold for $3,703,500.

The catalogue provides the following commentary:

"In the early 1980's, Willem de Kooning embarked on a last body of work that forms an outstanding coda to one of the most respected painting oeuvres of the 20th Century. One of de Kooning's most impressive achievements was his ability to continually develop, refine and advance his work over a period of 60 years, yet maintain an unmistakable touch that is instantly recognizable as his own....Like Claude Monet's late Water Lilies or Henri Matisse's cut-outs, de Kooning embarked on a late flowering of astonishing beauty, brilliant in its simplicity and grace....The origins of these later paintings can be found in works from the mid-late 1970's when he began a process of pictorial and coloristic simplification. From 1977-1982, the forms became larger, with less color variation and the surface became less scumbled and tortured. The palette becomes more retricted and less visceral."

The auction has three fine works by Franz Kline (1910-1962). Lot 20, "Four Square," is perhaps the most impressive. It is a 78-by-48-inch oil on canvas that was executed in 1953. It has a very modest estimate of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000. It sold for $1,911,500. It was part of the collection of Dorothy C. Miller, who was for many years a curator at the Museum of Modern Art. Another Kline black-and-white painting with the same title is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Lot 34, "Rue," is a less powerful but still impressive Kline. An oil on canvas that measures 102 by 79 inches, it was painted in 1959. It was once in the collection of Steve Martin, the actor, and the catalogue reproduces a delightful photograph by Annie Leibowitz of Mr. Martin standing in front of the painting dressed in a white suit appropriately splattered with Klinesque black strokes of paint. Perhaps because of its larger size, this lot has a much higher estimate than Lot 20. It has an estimate of $3,500,000 to $4,500,000. It sold for $2,247,500.

The third Kline is Lot 21, "Study for White Forms," a 10 1/8-by-7-inch brush and ink on paper. It is a very lovely calligraphic work that was executed in 1955 and was also in the Dorothy C. Miller collection. It has a very conservative estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. It sold for $153,100, a world auction record for a work on paper by the artist. The previous record was $110,500, set at Christie's May 9, 2000. It is a study for a work in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Lot 28 is an untitled oil on canvas by Mark Rothko (1903-1970) that measures 69 by 64 inches. A classic Rothko composition, it was executed in 1963 and has an estimate of $4,000,000 to $6,000,000. It sold for $7,175,500, the highest price of the auction. "Almost autumnal in its coloring," the catalogue entry for this lot observes, "the bold harmony of Untitled seems infused with tremendous power. This radiating sense of primal energy pulsating through the deep tones of color has been carefully achieved by Rothko layering his brushstrokes one upon the other until precisely the right balance and intensity has been achieved. Seemingly simple in its conception, this work has been built up over a period of time until the apparent calm of the gentle red/brown background seems impregnated with the fiery energy of the three colors it surrounds."

Another Rothko, Lot 61, "Red, Dark Red on Red," is a very strong acrylic on paper laid down on paper. The 1967 work measures 24 by 18 inches and has an estimate of $700,000 to $900,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $500,000.

Joan Mitchell (1926-1992) was the subject of a major exhibition in 2003 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Lot 25, "No. 3," a 69 1/4-by-65 3/8-inch oil on canvas was not included and in fact is better than most of the works in that exhibition. Executed in 1953-4, it has a modest estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. It sold for $903,500, a world record for the artist. The previous auction record of $830,750 was set at Sotheby's November 14, 2000. "As a second-generation Abstract Expressionist," the catalogue notes, "Mitchell took on the bold brushwork of de Kooning and Kline, whom she greatly admired, and yet remained wholly unique to her style."

Another fine work by Mitchell is Lot 31, "Plowed Field," a triptych oil on canvas that measures 112 by 213 inches. Painted in 1973, it is intensely colorful, and of a different style than Lot 25. Here Mitchell employs large rectangular patches of rich colors in marked contrast to the "whip-like" brushstrokes and dynamic composition of Lot 25. This lot, which also was not included in the 2002 Mitchell show at the Whitney but was included in a 1974 Whitney exhibition on Mitchell, has an estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. It sold for $657,100.

Jasper Johns (b. 1930) has three works in this auction, Lots 44, 14 and 15.

Lot 44 is entitled "Figure 3" and is a sculptmetal and collage on canvas that measures 26 by 20 inches. Executed in 1961, it has a estimate of $1,200,000 to $1,600,000. It sold for $1,2339,500. "As the crucial hinge between Post-War World II American Art and all that came after, Johns is arguably as important as any artist of the twentieth-century," gushed the catalogue entry in a fit of hyperbole that this viewer finds ridiculous as nothing in the Post-World War II era can equal the revolutionary and sensational achievements of the first 20 years of the 20th Century highlighted of course by Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism and Constructivism. Nevertheless, this is a rarely beautiful work by Johns. The catalogue entry, calmer, continued: "He transformed the extravagant approach to abstraction by the earlier generation into a highly controlled, meticulous, even calculating handling of medium. But he did all this while rendering motifs found in everyday life, thereby setting the stage for Pop Art. And because he often selected geometric patterns such as targets, flags and numbers, and approached art in such a celebral fashion, Johns is usually given credit for being the progenitor of Mimimal and Conceptual Art, too."

There are two Johns works from the Dorothy C. Miller Collection, Lots 14 and 15. Lot 14, "Litanies of the Chariot," is a pencil and graphite wash on paper that measures 5 1/8 by 3 5/8 inches. Executed in 1961, it has an estimate of $120,000 to $180,000. It sold for $298,700. It was given to Ms. Miller by Robert Scull, a collector. Lot 15, "Gray Numbers," is a 28-by-22-inch encaustic on canvas. Painted in 1957, this work by Johns has an estimate of $5,000,000 to $7,000,000. It sold for $5,271,500. It is the first of the artist's "gray numbers" paintings and was acquired by Ms. Miller at the 1958 one-man exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery, a show that Mr. Castelli has been quoted as saying was "the crucial event in my career as an art dealer."

"It is a testament to Dorothy Miller," the catalogue entry observed, "that she should have bought for herself not only one of the most challenging and conceptual works in the show, but also the one that most refuted the tenets of Abstract Expressionism - the movement which she herself had helped to champion. Heralding the direction that Johns' art would later take Gray Numbers pointed towards a new objetive art that refuted the heavy subjectivity of the then dominant 'action painting' of the New York School. Seeming like a new form of Realist painting, the cold impersonality of Johns' numbers, the self-evident logic of their systematic progression and the negation of any color through the artist's use of gray all appeared to deny the presence of the individual and seemed to present a new and wholly objective view of reality. This is to a degree thwarted by the sensual painterly application of the thick encaustic that Johns uses, a feature of the work that gives the impression that the artist's painterly ejoyment of making it played a strong role in the creation of the work." The catalogue entry also notes that this work is the only one in the series in which Johns did not use a stencil.

It is historically perhaps an important work, but aesthetically it is not particularly beautiful, especially in comparison with Lot 44.

Lot 41, "Woman with Peanuts," is a typical early work by Roy Lichtenstein. An oil and graphite on canvas, it measures 69 by 45 3/4 inches. Executed in 1962, it has an ambitious estimate of $2,500,000 to $3,500,000. It failed to sell.

Lot 35, "Gamma Kappa" is a classic and superb acrylic on canvas by Morris Louis (1910-1962). Created in 1960, it measures 102 7/8 by 157 inches. It has an estimate of $300,000 to $500,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $180,000.

Lot 16 is a fine untitled wall relief by Lee Bontecou (b. 1931). A welded steel, canvas and copper wire construction, it measures 23 by 24 by 7 inches, it was created in 1960. It has a conservative estimate of $50,000 to $70,000. It sold for $298,700, breaking the previous world auction record for the artist of $46,000 set at Sotheby's in 1993.

Lot 59 is an impressive Cor-ten steel, 108-inch cube sculpture by Bruce Nauman (b. 1941). Executed in 1978, it is number two of an edition of three. It has an estimate of $350,000 to $450,000. It sold for $959,500.

Lot 19 is a very good oil on canvas by Bradley Tomlin Walker (1899-1953). It measures 20 1/8 by 18 inches and was executed in 1949. It has a conservative estimate of $70,000 to $90,000. It sold for $242,700.

Lot 46, "Lifeboat," is a bronze sculpture by Jeff Koons (b. 1945). It is an artist's proof from an edition of three and an artist's proof. It was executed in 1985. It has an estimate of $1,600,000 to $1,900,000. It sold for $2,023,500.

Lot 58, a large untitled 1968 sculpture by Alexander Calder sold for $5,831,750, breaking the previous world auction record for the artist of $4,185,750 set at Sotheby's November 14, 2000. It had been estimated at $4,000,000 to $5,000,000.

Lot 27, "Celebration" a large painting by Lee Krasner, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art for $1,911,500, which smashed the artist's previous auction record of $198,400 set at Sotheby's May 14, 2003.

A world record for a drawing by Philip Guston was set when Lot 12 sold for $242,700, far above the previous record of $79,571.

A world auction record was set for Takashi Murakami for Lot 7, "Untitled (Gold)," a 1999 painting. It sold for $623,500. The previous record was $567,500.

A world auction record for Nara Yoshitomo was set when Lot 1, "The Little Pilgrims," sold for $130,700, breaking the previous record of $101,575 set at Christie's New York May 15, 2003.

Lot 6, "Fireman and Drunk," a painting by Richard Prince sold for $365,900 setting a new world auction record for the artist. The previous record was $269,750 set at Sotheby's May 17, 2000.

A world auction record was set for Marlene Dumas whose "Wet Dreams" sold for $332,300, a bit over the previous record of $308,445 set at Christie's in London in June, 2003.