Warhol Sale Stars in Spring Art Auctions

NEW YORK — In an art market still struggling to recover its vigor after the boom and bust of the late 1980s, the spring auction season got off to a respectable--and occasionally buoyant--start this week. Despite a few major disappointments, overall results brought a sigh of relief to the sellers.

Christie’s racked up a total of $23.3 million in sales Wednesday night, just under the auction house’s low estimate of $24.1 million. Andy Warhol’s 1962 painting, “Big Torn Campbell’s Soup Can (Pepper Pot),” brought the top price of $3.5 million from an unidentified bidder. Los Angeles collector Eli Broad paid the second-highest price, $2.8 million, for Roy Lichtenstein’s 1962 comic-book-style depiction of a battle scene, entitled “Blang.”

“It’s a healthy, strong, sensible market,” Christie’s auctioneer Christopher Burge said after the sale. While 11 of the 63 artworks offered failed to find buyers--including Willem de Kooning’s 1971 painting, “Amityville,” valued at $2 million to $2.5 million--Burge said 47% of the selling prices exceeded the auction house’s most optimistic estimates.

So far, all the news is good for television producer Douglas S. Cramer, who consigned 12 pieces of sculpture to the Wednesday night auction and an additional 10 works to a sale today at Christie’s. “It’s like having open-heart surgery,” said Cramer, who is downsizing his collection in conjunction with his move from a sprawling ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley to smaller quarters in New York.

“You know you have the best surgeon and the best anesthesiologist, but you still think you might not make it,” he said. “It’s wonderful to wake up when it’s over, and you’re still breathing and you can go on collecting.”

Cramer said he was pleased that all 12 pieces were sold and 10 of them reached or exceeded pre-sale estimates. An untitled bronze sculpture by Joel Shapiro, depicting three rectangular-block figures, brought the top price of $607,500. It had been valued at $300,000 to $400,000.

Tuesday night, Sotheby’s held a smaller sale that only yielded $15.2 million and produced no buyers for seven of the 43 pieces offered, but commanded big prices for 11 adventurous works by relatively young artists.

Consigned by the Boston Children’s Heart Foundation, the works were part of a collection formed by Dr. Bernardo Nadal-Ginard, a Boston cardiologist who is serving a one-year prison sentence for misappropriating funds from the nonprofit research organization.

The star attraction was Matthew Barney’s installation “Transexualis (Decline)”--consisting of a walk-in cooler, a weightlifter’s decline bench coated with petroleum jelly, and video monitors, designed for a performance about metabolic processes. The work was estimated at $100,000 to $150,000, but an unidentified collector bought it for $343,500.

After a round of fierce bidding, London dealer Anthony D’Offay snagged “Pee Body,” Kiki Smith’s wax sculpture of a nude woman crouching as if she were urinating a stream of glass beads. The price was $233,500, nearly three times the high estimate of $80,000.

While the Boston works created the buzz at Sotheby’s, two conventional Abstract Expressionist paintings--Franz Kline’s “Crosstown” and Mark Rothko’s “No. 19”--commanded the top price of $2.2 million apiece.

(Prices include the auction house’s commission, 15% of the first $50,000 and 10% of the rest. Estimates do not reflect the commissions.)