Masterworks by Mondrian, Monet and Rothko power the first night of Christie’s NY 20th and 21st Century Art week to $488,947,900

Rockefeller Center, New York, updated: 12 May, 11:00PM ET.

Christie’s 20th and 21st Century Art sales week in New York began on Monday 12 May 2025 with Leonard & Louise Riggio: Collected Works followed by the 20th Century Evening Sale, which together achieved $488,947,900, selling 99 per cent by lot and 98 per cent by value.

A rare 1922 Mondrian, Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue, was the top lot of the night, selling for $47,560,000. Monet’s Peupliers au bord de l’Epte, crépuscule (1891) also exceeded $40 million, selling for $42,960,000, and establishing a record for the series.

In addition to the record for Claude Monet’s Poplars series, the evening saw new artist records for Dorothea Tanning and Remedios Varo, as well as a record for a work on paper by Franz von Stuck.

Leonard & Louise Riggio: Collected Works

Auctioneer Adrien Meyer, Global Head of Private Sales and Co-Chairman of Impressionist and Modern Art, took the rostrum to lead Leonard & Louise Riggio: Collected Works. The collection of the Barnes & Noble founder and his wife achieved a total of $271,943,100, selling 97 per cent by lot, 97 per cent by value, and 113 per cent hammer and premium against low estimate. Led by the iconic Mondrian from 1922, as well as René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (1949) and one of Pablo Picasso’s portraits of Lee Miller (1937), the sale presented an anthology of the artists who challenged some of our most established ideas about art, culture and society.

The evening opened with Balthus’s arresting portrait of his wife Antoinette de Watteville, Jeune fille en vert et rouge (Le Chandelier) (1944-1945), which sold for $3,377,500.

Mondrian’s Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue (1922) achieved the sale’s — and the night’s — highest price at $47,560,000, selling to applause. The painting exemplifies the artist’s distinctive visual language of straight lines, primary colours and neutrals, through which he sought to create ‘universal beauty’.

Leonard and Louise Riggio’s collecting was driven by a lifelong pursuit of knowledge and spirit of discovery, reflected in two astonishing masterworks by René Magritte: L’empire des lumières (1949) and Les droits de l’homme (1947-1948), which fetched $34,910,000 and $15,935,000 respectively.

Picasso’s Femme à la coiffe d’Arlésienne sur fond vert (Lee Miller), painted in 1937 while the Spanish artist was holidaying with a circle of Surrealist creatives in Mougins, garnered $28,010,000, after lively bidding on the phone and in the room.

The Riggios’ collection additionally included several outstanding Giacomettis. One of the earliest sculptures of the artist’s groundbreaking Femme de Venise series, Femme de Venise I realised $17,660,000, and one of his important multi-figure compositions conceived in 1950 went for $10,760,000. The painting Nu dans l’atelier (Annette) (1954) sold for $8,460,000.

Willem de Kooning’s Woman and Child (c. 1967-1968) surpassed its high estimate, fetching $7,128,500.

20th Century Evening Sale

Directly after the Riggio sale, auctioneers Meyer and David Kleiweg de Zwaan, Senior Specialist, Impressionist and Modern Art, led the 20th Century Evening Sale. The auction realised a total of $217,004,800 selling 100 per cent by lot, 100 per cent by value, and 110 per cent hammer and premium against low estimate.

The sale opened with nine works from Anne and Sid Bass’s famous Fort Worth residence designed by Paul Rudolph, offered as part of Art from the Bass House. The selection exceeded expectations and achieved $73,215,000. The jewel of the Bass collection, Mark Rothko’s No. 4 (Two Dominants) [Orange, Plum, Black] (1950-1951) reached $37,785,000 after enthusiastic bidding on the telephones and in the room. The luminous painting had pride of place in the music room of the Bass house. Additional works from the Bass collection will appear in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on Thursday 15 May.

The top lot of the 20th Century Evening Sale was Monet’s Peupliers au bord de l’Epte, crépuscule (1891), selling for $42,960,000 following nearly five minutes of lively bidding between phones. The price set a new auction record for the Poplars series, breaking the previous one set by Peupliers au bord de l’Epte, automne (1891) from the Collection of Anne H. Bass at Christie’s in 2022. Monet’s famed Poplars hail from a pivotal moment in the artist’s career when he produced some of his most enduring Grainstacks and Rouen Cathedral paintings, as well as his first epic Water Lilies. This particular example was recently exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Also in the 20th Century Evening Sale, belonging to an important group of paintings that established Gerhard Richter’s landscapes as a fundamental part of his oeuvre, Korsika (Schiff) (1968) soared past its high estimate to achieve $15,245,000 after a seven-minute bidding war between phones.

It was a great night for women Surrealists. Selling for $2,349,000, Endgame (1944) set a new world record for Dorothea Tanning, as did the ethereal Revelación (also titled El relojero) (1955) for Remedios Varo, which achieved $6,221,000.

Up next

Christie’s 20th and 21st Century sale week continues on Tuesday morning with the Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper sale, followed by the Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale in the afternoon.

On Wednesday 14 May the 21st Century Evening Sale will present masterworks from the past 50 years, opening with For Art’s Sake: Selected Works by Tiqui Atencio & Ago Demirdjian. The Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale concludes the week on Thursday 15 May.