NEW YORK, NY.- Today’s auction of American Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture at Sotheby’s New York achieved $27,124,125 in total, above a pre-sale low estimate of $25.3 million. Six of the paintings on offer brought prices over $1 million, and new artist records were set for Ernest Leonard Blumenschein, William J. McCloskey and William Aiken Walker. The sale featured works from two remarkable private collections–Property from the Collection of Edward P. Evans and Property from a Distinguished East Coast Collection–and was led by George Bellows’s Dock Builders from the Evans Collection, which sold for $3,890,500 (est. $2/3 million). The first of a series of works by the artist that focus on Maine ’s rugged seamen, the canvas exhibits the same compositional dynamism that Bellows made famous in his iconic boxing scenes. Sotheby’s now holds the top four prices for the artist at auction.

Property from the Collection of Edward P. Evans performed well today overall, with a cumulative total of $12,726,750 that was well above the pre-sale low estimate of $9.5 million, and with 85% of the lots on offer finding buyers. In addition to Bellows’s Dock Builders, the Collection was highlighted by Quai St. Michel by Childe Hassam, which brought $2,098,500, and The Old Sand Road by William Merritt Chase, which sold for $1,202,500 above a high estimate of $900,000. A new artist record was set for William J. McCloskey, whose Wrapped Oranges on a Tabletop more than doubled its high estimate in achieving $782,500.

Property from a Distinguished East Coast Collection also brought several of today’s top prices. Competition in the room, on the phones and online drove Thomas Hart Benton’s Flood Disaster to $1,874,500, in excess of its $1.2 million high estimate. The artist painted the work in response to the 1951 flooding of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, which devastated over 1 million acres in the region. This marks the second-highest price for a work by Benton at auction, and Sotheby’s now holds the top three prices for the artist. Also highlighting the collection was Milton Avery’s March Playing the Cello, which brought $1,426,500. Four of the five lots by Avery on offer in today’s sale found buyers, demonstrating the strength of the market for the artist’s work.

Western art in today’s auction was led by two works from the Wichita Center for the Arts. Ernest Leonard Blumenschein’s White Blanket and Blue Spruce, which features a single, standing female draped in swaths of fabric, brought $1,538,500, well in excess of its $900,000 high estimate. This result nearly quadruples the previous record for the artist at auction, set by Sotheby’s in 1998. Walter Ufer’s After the Chapel Hour also exceeded its high estimate in selling for $818,500.

*Pre-sale estimates do not include buyer’s premium