Auctions: Testing the Moderns

The muse notwithstanding, art in the Western world is a commodity. In U.S. dollars, the timely tabulation takes place in the high temple of auctioneering, Manhattan's Parke-Bernet Galleries. When the collection of the late Wall Street stockbroker Ira Haupt went under the hammer last week, the question was: How fare the moderns?

Right from the start the mood was bullish. First up were European blue chips: a Kandinsky watercolor went for $7,200, a Salvador Dali watercolor reached an extraordinary $11,500, and a fine 1921 Mondrian peaked at $42,000. Then Russian-born Nicolas de Staël, who jumped out his studio window in 1955, sent bids skyrocketing when his semi-abstraction, Fleurs, soared to $68,000 to set a new record. In all, four works by De Staël brought $152,000.

The Americans were also a matter of astronomy, although Mark Tobey's star seemed dwindling. Three Tobeys went for a total of $34,000, or $8,500 below top estimates. But Willem de Kooning's flowing landscape, Merritt Parkway (TIME, May 18, 1959), garnered his top auction price, an even $40,000. And for the first time a Robert Rauschenberg was put up for bids. A 1959 "combine" (it includes a tie and a zipper) called Summer Storm popped right through the ceiling, to $13,000, or nearly twice the estimated price.

With a total of $483,000 paid for 40 works in a scant hour, Peregrine Pollen, representative of Parke-Bernet's new owner, Sotheby's of London, saw nothing but blue sky ahead for U.S. modern art. "Breaking records doesn't mean too awfully much, does it?" said Pollen. "Look at the mile. It's broken every day."