Results: Sotheby's London Contemporary Art Evening Sale

Sotheby's London just had a very strong Contemporary art evening sale on the footsteps of the recent Modern Impressionist sale where the Giacometti set an all time auction record for a piece of art. The contemporary sale totaled $84.76 million (including buyers premium), with 74 lots selling.  A total of 77 lots were offered, so only four did not sell for a 96.10% sell through rate. The pre sale catalog estimate range was about $50.40 million to $70.51 million. The sale represented the second highest February London totals for a contemporary art sale at Sotheby's. Given the contemporary art segment has shown serious signs of decline and weakness, the result are positive and encouraging.

With the 74 lots selling 21 new records were set. The top lot was a William de Kooning, untitled XIV (see image), selling for $6.17 million against an estimate of $3.16 million to $4.67 million. Buyers included 5 European private collectors, 1 US private collector, 1 European dealer and 3 anonymous purchases.

Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s Chairman of Contemporary Art Europe, said:

“The outstanding sell-through rates, depth of bidding across the sale – particularly for Lenz – and strong prices we achieved this evening are a clear sign of renewed confidence in this market and build on the positive and strong results of our New York sale in November.

The result for ZERO Art: Property from the Sammlung Lenz Schönberg is affirmation of the market’s hunger and thirst for coherent private collections of visual and fresh to the market works with exceptional provenance. Having been widely exhibited in museums across the world, ZERO Art has now also conquered the art market.”

Sotheby’s Senior Director and Senior International Specialist in Contemporary Art, Oliver Barker, continued: “We’ve witnessed this evening that there’s an intelligent marketplace which is keen to buy the very best of its type from masterworks at the very top end of the market, such as the De Kooning, Freud, Kleins, Fontanas, Manzoni, Doig and Ofili – our top lots tonight – to exceptional works by artists such Heinz Mack and Otto Piene at the middle-market level, the bellwether, which sold well in excess of their pre-sale estimates and set new records for the artists at auction.”