A ‘Shot in the Arm’ for Art Market : Art: The sale of 91 works from the McCarty-Cooper estate proves irresistible to a wide range of European, American buyers, garnering $21.5 million at Christie’s New York auction.

A renowned modern art collection that once distinguished a residential showcase in West Hollywood was dispersed at auction Monday night at Christie’s New York. The sale of 91 paintings, drawings, sculptures and ceramics from the collection of the late William A. McCarty-Cooper yielded a total of $21.5 million, squarely within the auction house’s pre-sale estimate of $18.5 million to $23.7 million.

“It was the age-old tale of marvelous works of art selling extremely well regardless of the climate,” said auctioneer Christopher Burge. “This was a great shot in the arm for the art market.”

Unlike recent big-ticket auctions in which up to one-third of the items have gone unsold, only five pieces in the McCarty-Cooper auction failed to find buyers. “The lure of a great collection” of works that had not been on the market for many years--in some cases for several decades--proved irresistible to a wide range of European and American buyers, Burge said.

McCarty-Cooper was a society decorator and philanthropist who lived in Los Angeles for several years prior to his death in 1991. He inherited a $40-million estate--including a vast art collection--from his longtime companion and adoptive father, art historian Douglas Cooper. Cooper was an authority on Cubism and a close associate of that period’s leading artists. Part of his collection was on view last year at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the critically acclaimed traveling exhibition, “Picasso, Braque, Gris, Leger: Douglas Cooper Collecting Cubism.”

Georges Braque’s painting “Atelier VIII” commanded the top price of $7.7 million at the Monday night auction. “It was a tremendous price for a really great picture,” Burge said. However, the price fell well below the artist’s record of $9.5 million, set in 1980. Protecting itself from a shaky art market, Christie’s had declined to publish an estimate for the Braque work, but Burge said he had expected the painting to bring between $5.5 million and $6.5 million. The buyer was not identified.

“Atelier VIII,” the final work in Braque’s series of studio paintings, is generally considered a fine example of his late work and a summation of his lengthy career. In the large (4 1/2-by-6 1/2-foot) painting, he transformed the clutter of his environment into a complex composition that incorporates many aspects of his earlier work: multifaceted and flat space, Fauve color as well as the neutral palette that characterized his Cubist phase, still-life objects, canvases and artists’ tools, and a large white crane in flight, which is thought to symbolize inexhaustible creativity.

Pablo Picasso’s 1932 painting “Compotier et Guitare” brought $3.85 million, the second highest price. “Guitare sur une Table,” a 1916 painting by Juan Gris, was sold for $1.5 million, the third highest price. Both the Picasso and the Gris were purchased by unidentified American collectors.

The sale included a wide range of artworks--from limited edition greeting cards and photographs of artists to prime paintings--valued from a few hundred dollars to several million.

There were 41 Picassos, 17 Fernand Legers, nine Braques and six works by Gris. Most pieces sold in the range of their estimated prices, but a few brought unexpectedly high sums.

“Le Constructeur,” Leger’s 1951 drawing of a construction worker’s legs, was expected to bring between $60,000 and $80,000, but it was sold for $198,000.

Henri Laurens’ mixed-media “Tete,” estimated at $40,000 to $60,000, brought $154,000. British artist Graham Sutherland’s portrait of Douglas Cooper, valued at $20,000 to $25,000, soared to $46,200. One collector paid $16,500 for a group of 10 greeting cards by Braque that was estimated at $2,000 to $3,000.

“In the bidding on small lots, it was clear that some people just wanted to have something from the collection,” Burge said.

The two most highly valued works that were not sold were Picasso’s 1918 painting “Paquet de Tabac” ($800,000 to $1 million) and Leger’s 1924 painting “Nature Morte au Buste” ($700,000 to $900,000).

Burge said he expected all the unsold pieces to be snapped up within 24 hours in private sales.

McCarty-Cooper sold some major works from the Cooper collection after his benefactor’s death in 1984 and added many pieces of fine and decorative arts. A nearly sold-out auction of furniture, silver, books and decorative arts from the McCarty-Cooper estate in January brought a total of $2.97 million in sales. The final sale from the estate, an auction of tribal arts, is scheduled for Tuesday at Christie’s New York.