Most of the headlines from Christie’s blockbuster evening sales of the S.I. Newhouse collection and 20th-century art on Monday will likely focus on the 8- and 9-figure prices: the $181.2 million Pollock, the $107.6 million Brâncuși, and the $98.4 million Rothko. Those are mind-blowing sums, to be sure, but those works were always going to do well. The sale actually revealed more about the market below $20 million, which experienced a depth of bidding that has been missing from the highly choreographed and overestimated auctions of recent years.

The double-header, which generated $1.1 billion across 64 lots, demonstrated the growing strength of the US art-buying public, especially in the western region, as evidenced by Christie’s representatives bidding on the phones. By comparison, European and Asian representatives barely got into the action, and only at the lower price points. As always, works fresh to the market outperformed those that have been passed around in recent years.