Contemporary Curated makes $36.8m on $7.3m Kerry James Marshall painting and $2.6m Jack Whitten; Marc Benioff Doesn't Want Your Tax Deduction.

This commentary by Marion Maneker is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)

Sotheby’s mid-season Contemporary sale totaled $36.8m, building upon the $30.8m the same sale pulled in last September and the $26m from a year before. As with September, one of the top lots was a Kerry James Marshall work. But this time it was painting that ignited a prolonged all-hands bidding war that resulted in a $7.3m price that was nearly triple the high estimate. The five-times-the-high-estimate sale of Jack Whitten’s $2.6m Special Checking was very special indeed. Alice Neel’s Connie—bid upon and won by Amy Cappellazzo—also showed the sale’s organizer, Charlotte Van Dercook, was right to declare the painter undervalued.