It’s official: after Katya Kazakyna at Artnet News leaked the news, Christie's has confirmed it has secured 16 trophy pieces from the collection of media mogul and power collector S.I. Newhouse, to be offered in a separate single-owner sale, Masterpieces: The Private Collection of S.I. Newhouse, that will open and headline the house’s May Marquee auctions alongside other notable collections—including a combined $80 million worth of works from Agnes Gund’s collection.
The S.I. Newhouse selection will be led by a seminal work by Jackson Pollock: the monumental Number 7A (1948). Measuring 131.5 inches (334 cm) wide—the largest drip painting by Pollock remaining in private hands—the work presents a dynamic composition executed in his signature dripping technique, not unlike the example hanging at the Museum of Modern Art. It comes to auction with an estimate in the $100 million range; no equivalent work has appeared at auction in recent years. (Pollock’s current auction record was set at Christie’s in 2013, when Number 19 (1948), enamel on canvas, sold for $58.4 million.)
Boasting a remarkable provenance beginning with the photographer Herbert Matter, to whom Pollock gifted the work, and extending to collectors Kimiko and John Powers, the painting has been out of public view for nearly half a century, since its last showing at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1977. While the masculine myth surrounding many Postwar male painters has faded, the Pollock legend may still trigger strong market interest. In November 2024, a smaller but iconic painting sold at Phillips for $15.3 million, although the auction house later filed a lawsuit against film producer David J. Mimran, who had agreed to act as third-party guarantor but failed to pay.
Another top lot from the collection is the rare bronze Danaïde by Constantin Brâncuși—bronze with gold leaf and black patina—appearing at auction for the first time in decades and the only gilded example in private hands. Conceived and cast in 1913, the golden idol synthesizes iconographies and visual cultures across ancient civilizations and the modern era, from Egyptian sculpture in its structural stylization to Greek mythology in its title and East Asian statuary in its delicate finish. Of the six bronzes cast from this model, four are held in institutional collections: the Centre Pompidou in Paris; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Tate in London; and the Kunst Museum Winterthur.
Originally acquired by Eugene and Agnes Meyer in 1914 at Brâncuși’s first solo show at Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery in New York, it later passed to their daughter, who sold it to S.I. Newhouse at Christie’s in 2002, where it established a new record for any work of modern sculpture at the time. It will now be offered with an estimate in the region of $100 million.
Additional highlights from the Newhouse selection include a similarly iconic sculpture, Tête de femme (1909), bronze, by Pablo Picasso, offered with a $40-60 million estimate, paired with a Cubist painting of the same subject, estimated at $6-7 million. Also from his Cubist period—and seminal in the progressive fragmentation and synthesis of planes through which Picasso elaborated this style—is Homme à la guitare (1913), previously in the collections of Gertrude Stein and the Museum of Modern Art, now coming to auction with a $35-55 million estimate. An additional Picasso sculpture inspired by archaic and primordial forms, La femme enceinte, 1er état (1950s), bronze, is offered with an estimate of $18-25 million.
Alongside these historical works, Christie’s will also present a rare and perfectly preserved squared composition of elementary colors by Piet Mondrian, Composition (1921), estimated at $35-65 million; a mysterious, earth-toned painting by Joan Miró from 1924, estimated at $25-35 million; a vibrant work by Henri Matisse from his sun-blessed Nice period in 1938, estimated at $30-50 million; and Francis Bacon’s Study for Portrait I (after the Life Mask of William Blake) (1955), with a $4-6 million estimate.
Completing the group are key works of Pop art and Neo-Dada, led by three significant works by Jasper Johns from the mid-to-late 1950s: Figure 2, Alley Oop and his iconic Grey Target, estimated at $10-15 million, $6-8 million and $20-30 million, respectively. The latter was originally in the collection of legendary dealers Ileana and Michael Sonnabend in 1960, from which Newhouse purchased it in 1998, where it has remained a pillar of his collection ever since.
The group also includes Robert Rauschenberg’s mixed-media collage on canvas Levee (1955), estimated at $7-10 million; a floral black-and-white composition by Roy Lichtenstein, Voodoo Lily, estimated at $6-8 million; and an acrylic, graphite and crayon on linen work by Andy Warhol from his more playful “Do It Yourself” series, dated 1962 and estimated at $20-30 million.
Newhouse’s wealth derived primarily from Advance Publications, the privately held media empire the family has run for generations, whose portfolio includes Condé Nast, numerous regional newspapers and cable and digital platforms. Over several decades, the Newhouse family also assembled one of the most formidable private art collections in the United States—particularly under the leadership of S.I. Newhouse, Jr., who aggressively built the collection from the 1960s onward, focusing on the art of his own time and ultimately assembling one of the most important private collections of Postwar art.
Since S.I. Newhouse’s passing in 2017, works from his collection have circulated through both public sales and private transactions, often with the involvement of Tobias Meyer, the former Sotheby's star auctioneer who long served as his trusted advisor. A first selection went to auction at Sotheby’s in 2018, generating roughly $300 million, led by masterpieces including the $46 million Roy Lichtenstein Nude with Joyous Painting (1994), the $25.8 million Jeff Koons Balloon Flower (Magenta) and a $25.8 million work by Francis Bacon. Christie’s later secured the consignment for other works, including Koons’s mirror-polished Rabbit (1986), which sold for $91 million in 2019, becoming the most expensive work by a living artist ever sold at auction at the time. Sixteen works from the collection sold by Christie’s brought in $178 million in May 2023, led by Willem de Kooning’s Orestes (1947) at $31 million, alongside a $34.62 million Francis Bacon work and an iconic $22.3 million Ed Ruscha.
“SI always looked for the highest quality, regardless of what he was looking at,” Tobias Meyer said in a statement. “He was also fearless in editing his collection. He owned the most important paintings by the most important artists, selling at times, buying things back at others, over many years of study and rigor, putting together a collection without parallel.” This latest group of works from the Newhouse holdings is expected to achieve an even higher total, with a combined estimate in the range of $450 million. The lots will be presented in chronological order, tracing the evolution of modern and contemporary art languages from the revolutions of Post-Impressionism and Cubism to Pop art.
In December, Sotheby’s included two other masterpieces once owned by Newhouse in its blockbuster “Icons: Back to Madison” exhibition at its new headquarters: Warhol’s Shot Orange Marilyn, which Newhouse acquired for $17.3 million in 1998 at Sotheby’s, and Jasper Johns’s False Start (1959), which he purchased in 1988 for $17 million, also at Sotheby’s. If that was a strategy to draw the estate closer, it didn’t work; Christie’s more convenient financial terms and selling conditions clearly proved the stronger argument.
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