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A powerful example of Jackson Pollock’s celebrated drip paintings – Number 31, 1949 – will lead Christie’s 20th century evening sale in New York on May 12. Made of oil, enamel, aluminum paint and gesso on paper mounted on Masonite the estimate is in excess of $45 million. It has been featured in a number of important exhibitions, including the 1967 Jackson Pollock MoMA retrospective in addition to the 1998 retrospective mounted at MoMA and The Tate. Held in the same private collection for over two decades the work is fresh to market.

Alex Rotter, Christie’s Chairman of 20^th and 21^st Century Art, said:  “In the late 1940s, Pollock’s drip paintings categorically redefined how we understand art. This moment saw the art world’s centre of gravity shift for the first time away from the museums and galleries of Paris and into the streets of New York. With his revolutionary new technique, Pollock effectively upended the existing framework of traditional painting practices. True drip paintings were—and still are—the ultimate in mid-century American avant-garde, and are rare to come across in the secondary market. Number 31 is a superb example. It is a fantastic, frenetic combination of rich hues—straight from the paint can.” 

Jackson Pollock’s Red Composition will highlight Christie’s evening sale of 20th/21st century art in New York on October 6. This early seminal and painting dates to the end of 1946. It is among the first paintings in which Pollock freed paint from the interference of his brush, allowing it to take on its own form and in the process become a manifestation of true abstraction.

It is being sold by the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York, as part of a larger museum commitment to refine and diversify its collection and establish a fund for future acquisitions of artworks by artists of colour, women artists, and other under-represented emerging and mid-career artists. The decision to sell is in keeping with guidelines established by the American Alliance of Museums and has the support of the Board of Trustees of the Museum as well as the foundation established by Dorothy and Marshall M. Reisman who donated the work in 1991. 

Red Composition first belonged to the legendary dealer and gallery owner Peggy Guggenheim, one of Jackson Pollock’s earliest an patrons. Guggenheim gave it to Jimmy Ernst, son of Surrealist painter Max Ernst, in 1947. Ernst Senior was married to Guggenheim between 1941 and 1946. Early in the 1950’s it was acquired by New York businessman Marshall Reisman and his wife Dorothy and in their personal collection for over forty years until it was donated in 1991 to the Everson Museum. It is estimated at $12-18 million.