Phillips de Pury's November 15 evening sale was a fitting end to the $1.7 billion fall auction season, up from $1.4 billion six months ago and less than half that amount two years ago. The crowd was loud and restless, prompting the irrepressible Simon de Pury to shush them a half-dozen times (to no avail). Still, de Pury rode the audience like a first-rate jockey for three-plus hours, bringing in a mid-estimate $42.3 million and $8.2 million to benefit the New Museum. The top lot was Willem de Kooning's 1982 Untitled XVI, an orange, blue, and white Alzheimer's-afflicted aerial canvas, which fetched a tepid $5.8 million (estimate: $5/7 million).

de Kooning's 1982 Untitled XVI

By the end of the two-week marathon, buyers were distracted and boisterous--de Pury repeatedly used inflection and one-on-one direction to overcome the constant din of white noise that filled the Meatpacking District warehouse-cum-salesroom. "Would you like to continue?" a flushed de Pury queried one female bidder. "No? You wouldn't? That's very, very sad."

A delectable European openness and voyeurism pervade Phillips beyond the cheeky see-through partition separating the ladies from the gents in the underground restrooms. Newlyweds Amalia Dayan and Adam Lindemann, the widely reported seller of Jeff Koons's $23.5 million Hanging Heart at Sotheby's, canoodled in a center row, while jeweler Laurence Graff, who paid a combined $24 million for a soup-can picture and a double-image of Elvis Presley by Warhol earlier in the week, mingled and chatted as if bar-hopping with old friends.

(Over the weekend, the New York Times's Carol Vogel kind-a-sort-a reported
that Graff was the buyer of Koons's $11.8 million Diamond (Blue). She also named Damien Hirst as the buyer who paid $33 million for a 1969 Francis Bacon self-portrait; Eli Broad as the winner of Koons's Hanging Heart; and Steven Cohen as the buyer of Francis Bacon's $45.9 million picture of a bullfight.)

Larry Gagosian, who normally makes the round at Phillips, was nowhere to be seen, but Philippe Segalot carried on with his seasonal buying spree, winning a Styrofoam work with footprints by Rudolf Stingel
for an artists-record $1.9 million (estimate: $500/700,000).

Prince's 2002 Registered Nurse

Dealer Andrew Fabricant, spouse of Laura Paulson, Christie's international director for contemporary art, wanted Richard Prince's 2002 Registered Nurse, but lost it to a phone bidder for $4.2 million (estimate: $1.5/2.5 million). Another Prince work dating from 2001 and aptly titled What Can You Do? (estimate: $1.5/2 million) failed to find a buyer when art adviser Kim Heirston was unable to connect with a client on her cell phone.

Eder's 2006 Masturbating Woman Surrounded by Bad Towels

The slim and seemingly proper de Pury displayed his trademark resolve when it came to Martin Eder's 2006 Masturbating Woman Surrounded by Bad Towels. Whereas Christie's Christopher Burge might have smirked and Sotheby's Tobias Meyer might have teased, de Pury unabashedly spanked the title across the room for $157,000.

--Kelly Devine Thomas