Sotheby’s two-day auction of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s personal art collection is off to a good start, with sales reaching $9.7 million across 28 lots.
Held in Paris on Wednesday, the Unwrapped, Part I: The Hidden World of Christo and Jeanne-Claude sale, which was announced in December, has already more than doubled its estimate of under €2.5m ($3m) to €3.8m.
The famed artist duo were known for their monumental environmental artworks and for wrapping famous landmarks, projects that were often financed on their own. Even after Jeanne-Claude's death in 2009, Christo continued working on their ideas until his death in 2020.
The Sotheby's sale has been organised with the artists' estate, which plans to inaugurate a foundation. A total of 400 lots are included, from works by notable artists that the couple collected and a number of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's own sculptures and drawings for their projects.
One of two drawings by Christo for the 1991 project The Umbrellas, Joint Project for Japan and USA, which involved the installation of thousands of umbrella in Ibaraki, Japan, and Los Angeles, California, fetched $2.06m, soaring beyond its estimate of €200,000 to €300,000. It also established a record auction price for the artist, whose previous record was $596,432.
The second drawing, with the same estimate, sold for $1.5m.
A number of other lots surpassed expectations, too, including a blue monochrome painting by Yves Klein from 1958, which more than tripled its estimate of €100,000 to €150,000 and sold for $527,000.
Klein gave the painting as a gift to Christo in exchange for a portrait the artist had made of Klein and his wife.
There was also Lucio Fontana's 1963 Concetto spaziale, Attese, which was expected to sell for €300,000 to €500,000, and over-performed at $1.1m.
The top lot was a 1964 print of Jackie Kennedy by Andy Warhol, which fetched $1.1m, just within its estimate.
Sotheby’s online sale continues on Thursday with a remaining 350 lots.
