{"id":955746,"date":"2026-05-12T22:37:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/955746\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T22:37:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:37:23","slug":"a-joan-mitchell-diptych-and-a-rare-stack-by-donald-judd-our-pick-of-the-may-auctions-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/955746\/","title":{"rendered":"A Joan Mitchell diptych and a rare stack by Donald Judd: our pick of the May auctions – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joan Mitchell, Plain (1989)<\/p>\n

Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Phillips, New York, 19 May<\/strong><\/p>\n

Estimate: $5m to $7m<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plain comes from the later part of Joan Mitchell\u2019s career. The diptych was acquired directly from New York\u2019s Robert Miller Gallery just two days after the opening of Mitchell\u2019s 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\u2019s\u00a0art scene, including the transformation of the Miami Art Museum into the P\u00e9rez Art Museum Miami in 2013. Hills died late last year, aged 103. Diptych paintings from later in Mitchell\u2019s career are widely represented in major international museum collections. In March, another Mitchell diptych, La Grande Vall\u00e9e VII (1983), sold for HK$137m ($17.6m) with fees at Sotheby\u2019s Hong Kong, making it the most valuable work by a woman artist sold at auction in Asia and breaking the artist\u2019s regional auction record.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Donald Judd\u2019s Untitled (Stack) (1969)<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2026 Max Touhey, all rights reserved<\/p>\n

Donald Judd, Untitled (Stack) (1969)<\/p>\n

Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Christie\u2019s, New York, 20 May<\/strong><\/p>\n

Estimate: $10m to $15m<\/strong><\/p>\n

This untitled \u201cstack\u201d by Donald Judd from 1969 leads Christie\u2019s 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\u2019s says. Dating from the late 1960s and widely considered the most significant of Judd\u2019s career, the piece was formerly installed in the Philadelphia home of the late Tylenol heir Henry S. McNeil Jr, who accumulated what Christie\u2019s 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\u2019s current auction record of $14.1m, set in 2013.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) (1983)<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Sotheby\u2019s<\/p>\n

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) (1983)<\/p>\n

The Now & Contemporary Evening Auction, Sotheby\u2019s, New York, 14 May<\/strong><\/p>\n

Estimate: In excess of $45m<\/strong><\/p>\n

Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) was executed in 1983, the most important year of Jean-Michel Basquiat\u2019s career, when he became an internationally known artist. Featuring text like \u201cpriceless art\u201d, 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\u2019s 2018 Basquiat retrospective in Paris. Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) last sold at auction for \u00a39.3m with fees at Christie\u2019s London in 2013, far lower than its current estimate, even when adjusted for inflation. \u201cI have long dreamt of bringing this work to auction, and it is a truly rare privilege to do so this spring,\u201d says Gr\u00e9goire Billault, Sotheby\u2019s New York chair of contemporary art.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mark Rothko, Brown and Blacks in Reds (1957)<\/p>\n

DBW, courtesy of Sotheby\u2019s<\/p>\n

Mark Rothko, Brown and Blacks in Reds (1957)<\/p>\n

Robert Mnuchin: Collector at Heart Evening Auction, Sotheby\u2019s, New York, 14 May<\/strong><\/p>\n

Estimate: $70m to $100m<\/strong><\/p>\n

A key work from the most important decade of Mark Rothko\u2019s 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\u2019s famed Seagram Murals commission. It has been included in several major exhibitions, including the artist\u2019s Fondation Louis Vuitton retrospective in Paris in 2023. The painting has been part of the Mnuchin collection for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joan Mitchell, Plain (1989) Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Phillips, New York, 19 May Estimate: $5m to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":955747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[9929,4021,4020,15057,4022,142379,77,18845,266802,204303,266801,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-955746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art-market","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-auctions","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-donald-judd","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-jean-michel-basquiat","16":"tag-joan-mitchell","17":"tag-mark-rothko","18":"tag-object-lessons","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116564005043710980","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}