Christie’s has secured the consignment of a mobile by Alexander Calder made of wood from early in the artist’s career. Specialists expect the work, the leading lot of the Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale next month, to sell for between $15m and $20m—Calder’s highest-ever auction estimate.
Painted Wood (1943) is the largest and most significant of Calder’s wooden Constellation mobiles ever to appear at auction, according to Christie’s. The work is being offered from the collection of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, a prominent collector of predominantly Latin American art. Its provenance is notable: the mobile was featured in Calder’s landmark 1943 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which made him—at age 45—the youngest artist to receive a solo exhibition at the museum. (Frank Stella broke that record in 1970 and still holds the title today.)
The record for Calder’s work at auction was set in 2014, when a later mobile sold at Christie's New York for $25.93m (with fees) against a $9m to $12m estimate.
Calder, who died in 1976 aged 78, is currently the subject of multiple high-profile institutional presentations, including at the newly opened Calder Gardens in Philadelphia. This weekend, the Whitney Museum of American Art opens a show celebrating the centennial of Calder’s Circus (1926–31), the artist’s miniature wire model of a circus.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Calder's current auction record. The article has been revised.