NEW YORK — A pair of bidders played a game of one-upmanship Thursday morning before Edward Hopper’s “East Wind Over Weehawken” sold for a record-breaking $36 million at Christie’s Auction House in New York.
Christie’s pre-estimated that the 1934 oil painting, which illustrates the streetscape of Weehawken’s Boulevard East, would fetch between $22 million and $28 million, but a phone bidder and participant at the auction house upped the ante on the lot after the price tag started at $16 million.
The bidding on the nearly 3-foot by 4-foot masterpiece and “star lot” of the 171-item auction, quickly jumped to $25 million and then $30 million. Andrew McVinish, who ran the auction for Christie’s, finally awarded the painting after three minutes to an unidentified phone bidder.
With the additional fees and payment to Christie’s, the winning bidder will pay a total of $40,485,000 for the artwork.
All of the proceeds will support the creation of a new endowment for the purchase of artworks to expand the collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts museum and school, which provided Hopper’s piece for the auction.
Since hearing about Christie's auction, Susie Felber decided to run her own Hopper-inspired auction to benefit the Weehawken PTPA, which she's been a member of for three years.
The mother of two Weehawken students commissioned Brooklyn artist Stephen Gardner to create a modernized version of "East Wind Over Weehawken," which is listed on eBay at a starting bid of $500.
“Any money I can give to the PTPA is fantastic,” she said. “I love this town so much.”
Gardner, who does a lot of landscape and building art work himself, said it was very enjoyable to paint.
“I’m a big admirer of Hopper’s work,” he said. “It was a great opportunity to emulate a Hopper-style painting."
He modernized the piece in a two-week span, adding cars, traffic lights and satellite dishes. Although it seemed like a simplistic piece, he said it was challenging to match Hopper’s style.
“He has a very simple way of putting color down. He doesn’t use as much detail as I would,” Gardner said. “He’s genius in his color choices and how he applies his strokes. It has a beautiful simplicity to it.”
