Christie’s may beat Jeff Koons’ $58.4 million auction record this spring with its sale of works from the collection of publishing magnate S.I. Newhouse, including the artist’s iconic “Rabbit” sculpture, Art Net reports.
“Si personified the rare combination of a great intuitive eye and great intellectual curiosity,” Tobias Meyer, adviser to the Newhouse family said in a prepared statement. “He read voraciously about the artists he admired, and nothing could stop him once he decided to acquire a work of art that measured up to his exacting standards.”
Newhouse’s collection will be sold over two nights during Christie’s “20th Century Week” in May, first with an Impressionist and modern evening sale on May 13 and later with a post-war and contemporary evening sale on May 15.
The collection includes 11 major works, including Paul Cézanne’s Bouilloire et fruits (1888-90), estimated at $40 million, and Andy Warhol’s Little Electric Chair, (1964-65), estimated at $7 million.
Koons’ sculpture “Rabbit” is expected to be the night’s biggest seller and is expected to sell for up to $70 million.
Over the past three decades the statue, which is often thought of as an icon of contemporary art, has been the star of a number of museum exhibitions around the world, including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London, the Château de Versailles, The Broad, and The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.