Results: Christies Post War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale

On Tuesday evening Chirstie's London held its Post War and Contemporary art evening sale. The auction offered 40 lots, with 35 selling for an 88% sell through rate. That is a rather high rate compared to what we have been seeing in past contemporary and impressionist sales. The Sale totaled $31.78 million, with the top lot, Peter Doig's Night Playground (see image) selling for $5.02 million. The next highest lot was a Richard Prince painting selling for $2.87 million. All of the top ten lots sold for above a million dollars, including buyers premium. The catalog sales estimate total for the sale was $28.6 million to $40.9 million, so the results of $30.78 were toward the low end of the estimate total, but 5 paintings also failed to sell. Overall and given the current market uncertainties, I think Chritie's had to be pleased with the results.

Francis Outred, International Director and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie’s Europe stated: We are delighted with the results of our sales tonight which continued the trend of strong sold rates seen in the first 6 months of this year at our international auctions. This evening, an active market saw 86% of lots find buyers in a sale that achieved strong prices - in particular, the outstanding result for Peter Doig's ‘Night Playground’, which made the second highest price ever achieved for the artist at just over £3 million. What was most interesting was that 80% of works sold within or above their pre-sale estimates, and that we welcomed bids from a significant number of new collectors.