A Joan Mitchell diptych and a rare stack by Donald Judd: our pick of the May auctions – The Art Newspaper

Joan Mitchell, Plain (1989)

Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Phillips, New York, 19 May

Estimate: $5m to $7m

Plain comes from the later part of Joan Mitchell’s career. The diptych was acquired directly from New York’s Robert Miller Gallery just two days after the opening of Mitchell’s first solo exhibition there in October 1989, and has remained in the same private collection since. It is now offered from the collection of Tina Hills, the late newspaper executive who played a key role in shaping Miami’s art scene, including the transformation of the Miami Art Museum into the Pérez Art Museum Miami in 2013. Hills died late last year, aged 103. Diptych paintings from later in Mitchell’s career are widely represented in major international museum collections. In March, another Mitchell diptych, La Grande Vallée VII (1983), sold for HK$137m ($17.6m) with fees at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, making it the most valuable work by a woman artist sold at auction in Asia and breaking the artist’s regional auction record.

Donald Judd, Untitled (Stack) (1969)

Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Christie’s, New York, 20 May

Estimate: $10m to $15m

This untitled “stack” by Donald Judd from 1969 leads Christie’s spring evening sale of post-war and contemporary works. The sculpture consists of a vertical progression of ten blocks in copper and red Plexiglas, a rare and coveted combination. That pairing is only known to exist in two Judd stacks, and this is the only example left in private hands, Christie’s says. Dating from the late 1960s and widely considered the most significant of Judd’s career, the piece was formerly installed in the Philadelphia home of the late Tylenol heir Henry S. McNeil Jr, who accumulated what Christie’s calls the foremost collection of Minimalist art. The auction house estimates that the collection will sell for more than $30m and the stack itself could exceed Judd’s current auction record of $14.1m, set in 2013.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) (1983)

The Now & Contemporary Evening Auction, Sotheby’s, New York, 14 May

Estimate: In excess of $45m

Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) was executed in 1983, the most important year of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s career, when he became an internationally known artist. Featuring text like “priceless art”, some interpret the painting as Basquiat dealing with his feelings about his newfound fame and the prices his works were fetching. It is one of 12 monumental canvases the artist produced that year during a stint in Los Angeles. It was on long-term loan to the Fondation Beyeler just outside of Basel for five years starting in 2013, before it was included in the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s 2018 Basquiat retrospective in Paris. Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) last sold at auction for £9.3m with fees at Christie’s London in 2013, far lower than its current estimate, even when adjusted for inflation. “I have long dreamt of bringing this work to auction, and it is a truly rare privilege to do so this spring,” says Grégoire Billault, Sotheby’s New York chair of contemporary art.

Mark Rothko, Brown and Blacks in Reds (1957)

Robert Mnuchin: Collector at Heart Evening Auction, Sotheby’s, New York, 14 May

Estimate: $70m to $100m

A key work from the most important decade of Mark Rothko’s career, Brown and Blacks in Reds is the leading lot for a standalone auction this spring dedicated to work from the collection of the late New York dealer Robert Mnuchin. Nearly eight feet tall, Brown and Blacks in Reds is one of a handful of monumental paintings Rothko executed in 1957, most of which are now in major institutional collections. The painting was acquired by Joseph E. Seagram & Sons around the time of its creation, and is often linked to the development of Rothko’s famed Seagram Murals commission. It has been included in several major exhibitions, including the artist’s Fondation Louis Vuitton retrospective in Paris in 2023. The painting has been part of the Mnuchin collection for more than 20 years.