Karl-Anthony Towns and Jordyn Woods’s Curated Sotheby’s Sale Just Set a Record

Karl-Anthony Towns helped bring the Knicks their first NBA title since 1973 in June. On Wednesday (Oct. 7), the center and his wife, Jordyn Woods, followed it with a record at Sotheby’s. Their “Contemporary Curated” sale brought in $38.6 million, the highest total in the series’ history, according to ARTnews.

Sotheby’s asks a celebrity to pick the lots each time, and past curators have included Victoria Beckham, chef Daniel Humm, producer Ryan Murphy, singer Kelly Rowland and Oprah Winfrey. Towns and Woods, who is also a model and founder of the lifestyle brand Woods by Jordan, chose a 10-lot lineup that ARTnews previewed in September: John Chamberlain, George Condo, Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Rashid Johnson, Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha, Alma Thomas and Andy Warhol.

Art holds memories and tells stories. Each work in this sale resonated with us for a different reason, and together they reflect the people, places, and experiences that continue to shape our perspective as collectors.

Karl-Anthony Towns and Jordyn Woods, in a joint statement, ARTnews

The night also included the collection of the late architect Robert A.M. Stern, which totaled $8.7 million against a $5.5 million high estimate, with 90% of lots sold. His Warhol Flowers (1964), one of the two top-estimated lots, sold for $6.3 million, per ARTnews, and Frankenthaler’s Return and Exit (1974) fetched $3 million, twice its low estimate. “Flowers remind us of family, of remembrance, and of the garden we hope to create one day,” Woods said in September.

Towns said in September that the Lichtenstein Green Head (1979), the other top-estimated lot, drew him for a reason. “I love seeing something that’s different from what people usually associate with him,” he said. The Lichtenstein came to market as the Whitney retrospective opened this week, and Sotheby’s separate sale of works from the artist’s own collection, Reflections on Pop, made $8.5 million.

Read moreA $30 Estate-Sale Painting Just Made $1.35 Million, a Record for Gertrude Abercrombie

It wasn’t a clean sweep for everything on the block. Avery Singer’s Kundry (2018), which carried a $600,000 low estimate, fetched just $243,200 at Sotheby’s on the same day. The painting had made $2.1 million at the same house in 2022, ARTnews notes, a sign of how cool the market has become for young names. Bidders across the fall’s first big auctions chased artists with decades-long track records instead.

Next up are November’s marquee sales in New York, where Christie’s will offer Clive Davis’s art collection and Jeff Koons’s reported “Heroes & Lovers” group.