Results: Sotheby's London Contemporary Art Evening Sale

Sotheby's just held its London Contemporary Art Evening sale.  The sale totaled $71.05 million (including buyers premium) against pre sale estimates of $48.7 million to $68.9 million (the pre sale estimates do not include buyers premium).  The contemporary sale offered 59 lots with 54 selling for an excellent buy through rate of 91.5%.  The top selling lot was Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (see image), selling for $11.55 million. Eight of the top ten sales sold for above the high estimate.

The general feeling is that this seasons major sales in London have been successful and the upper sectors are strong.

Sotheby's reported on the sale

Cheyenne Westphal, , Sotheby’s Chairman of Contemporary Art said Europe, said: : “This evening’s results, combined with the remarkable results established for Looking Closely last week, bring the overall total for Contemporary Art sold in this series to an outstanding £88 million. This is our highest total for a Contemporary Art sales series in London since July 2008, and our day sale is still to come. In tonight’s sale, as with ‘Looking Closely’, we saw collectors responding strongly to works of the highest quality that have not been available on the market for very many years. Buyers were out in force for such offerings, with multiple bidders on so many of the lots and participation from no fewer than 12 countries, demonstrating the depth of demand for the very best that the market has to offer.”

Oliver Barker, Senior Director and Senior International Specialist in Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Department, said: “The enduring and global appeal of Warhol was in full evidence tonight, with strong competition for his rare ‘Nine Multicoloured Marilyns’, as well as for the other four works by the artist we offered this evening. But Warhol shared the limelight with a number of others – including Juan Muñoz and Franz Gertsch. Both artists were represented by rare works that had been out of circulation for a very long time, and both excited enormous competition: Gertsch’s ‘Lucian 1’ exceeded the previous record by a factor of ten, and competition for Muñoz’s record-breaking ‘Conversation Piece’ drove the price to five times its estimate.

Following the exceptional prices achieved for Bacon and Freud at Sotheby’s last week, British Art was again much sought after tonight: works by Auerbach, Hockney and Riley commanded strong prices, and Glenn Brown’s ‘Declining Nude’ was particularly coveted. ”

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