Inside the Inaugural Creators Collectors Night at the Sotheby’s New York Galleries

Since 1966, the Breuer Building on the corner of Madison Avenue and 75th Street has stood as a modernist temple for the arts—first as The Whitney Museum, then as The Met Breuer, and finally as the temporary home of The Frick Collection. As of a month ago, its new era as the headquarters of Sotheby’s International has been ushered in (notably kicking off with the headline-making $700 million sale of Leonard Lauder’s collection). On Tuesday evening, it was clear that the next chapter is fully underway, as the storied auction house joined forces with Tiffany Co, Edition Hotels, and Sotheby’s International Realty for the first-ever Creators and Collectors dinner party.

It began in the building’s lobby with cocktails—namely, a fleet of Negroni variations courtesy of the Lake Como Edition—as guests fawned over large-scale Damien Hirst polka dots. Creators and Collectors is the latest initiative led by Kristina O’Neill, Sotheby’s head of media. “Tonight is about celebrating the forces that power our world,” she told the room. “These are the creators who push ideas forward, and the collectors whose belief and curiosity help those ideas flourish.”

The inaugural celebration drew a crowd that was equally global and local, with the likes of Carolyn Murphy, Iman, Gabriela Hearst, and Tory Burch stopping by. Naturally, all five cover stars who grace the latest issue of the Sotheby’s magazine were in attendance too: Jen Rubio, Thelma Golden, Peter Marino, John Batiste, and Julian Schnabel.

“It s funny, when you’re little and you first come to this town, you want to be invited to these events and you never are, but when you re grown up, somehow you get invited to all these things, and you never want to come…but I must say, this is a pleasant evening,” Schnabel quipped during an impromptu speech during dinner. “In 1987, I had an exhibition in this room. There weren t these walls here and in fact, there was a carpet on the floor that I took out because I thought it was very hard to show the kind of paintings that I wanted to show. The carpet looked quite corporate. Sitting here in this room, it reminded me of how important that moment, and this building, have been to me.”

For the evening, said room was decorated with works from the estate of Anne Schlumberger, incorporating Dale Chihuly and Francois-Xavier Lalanne, whose famed hippopotamus-shaped bar made of copper went on to sell for $31,430,000 a few hours later—far exceeding it $7 million estimate. (Indeed, a few guests could be seen boldly testing the hinges of the bar’s cabinets without so much as a slap on the wrist; they were perspective shoppers after all.)

However, Lily Allen joked that retail therapy was not on her agenda. “My credit card has been declined three times today,” she laughed. "I went to The Row: declined. I went to go buy a fur coat on Madison Avenue: declined. I have the money, but I think I’m touring too hard and the bank is confused when I’m in London one day and Paris the next, and then New York and L.A. So there’s no art on the shopping list tonight—but I did buy something recently at an exhibition for an artist called Tomo Campbell. It’s just really a lovely piece.”

For dessert, attendees were treated to a creation by pastry artist Paris Starn, who served up an homage to the Breuer Building’s signature exterior, complete with a side of pourable grey chocolate intended to mimic cement. Like any work of art, it was a polarizing offering that set the room abuzz as they bit into slabs of surprisingly tasty concrete.