Christie’s set new auction records for Fireelei Báez, Joan Brown and Olga de Amaral in Wednesday’s 21st Century Evening Sale, underscoring strong demand for historically unrecognized female artists.
Báez commemorative painting 2021 Untitled (American Colonization, Visual History Wall Chart, Prepared by Civic Education Service) Sold for $1,111,250, setting a new record for the Dominican-born artist, whose work examines colonial history through layers of archival maps, Caribbean symbolism and swirls of paint (in this case, densely rendered feathers). (All prices reported include buyer’s premium.)
brown After Alcatraz Swim #2 Sold for $596,900, this is a benchmark for a Bay Area figurative artist whose self-portrait is based on a near-fatal swim in San Francisco Bay in 1975.
The most expensive of the three is Amaral’s gold fiber piece Pueblo H (2011) soared to $3,125,000, more than double the previous auction record. The results, drawn from the Elaine Wynn Collection, reflect the Colombian artist’s soaring international profile, including her participation in the 2024 Venice Biennale and her retrospective, which debuted at the Fondation Cartier in Paris in 2024 before traveling to Miami’s Institute of Contemporary Art earlier this year. A pioneer of textile-based abstraction, Amaral’s architectural woven works are increasingly being reassessed as a central contribution to postwar art.
Christie’s also set two other sculpture auction records in the sale: a new high of $3,125,000 for a neon/sculptural work by Glenn Ligon, and a record for a three-dimensional work by Richard Prince. Untitled (Cowboy) Since 2011, the sculpture has brought in $3.4 million. Overall, this result marks an important night in an already strong auction season for artists who have historically been underrepresented in the high-end auction market.
