News

On consecutive evenings during the end of june 2007 auction records

tumbled as Christie's and then Sotheby's when they hosted their summer sales of Contemporary Art.

The strength andimportance of the London market continued to develop

against the world centre for Contemporary sales in New York. The weekend before the sales, The Wall Street Journal Europe illustrated the extent of this growth in London, citing a 348% increase of sales at Sotheby's between 2001 and 2006, against 185% growth in New York.

Following the astounding totals in New York in May 2007 the combined London evening sales at Christie's and Sotheby's made an extraordinary £146,500,400. The Christie's and Sotheby's sales, which totalled

£74,072,800 (a record for any Contemporary auction in Europe) and £72,427,600 (Sotheby's London's highest ever total in the field) respectively featured works  by established artists such as Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon,

Andy Warhol, Lucio Fontana and Yves Klein in addition to more recent artists such as Damien Hirst, Peter Doig and a selection of pieces from Chinese artists.

The Christie's sale was slightly larger than that at Sotheby's, with 101 lots as opposed to 72, and the sales achieved similar rates of sale by lots with Sotheby's achieving 91.7% against Christie's 89%. The Sotheby's sale also saw the average lot value exceed £1 million for the first time in Europe with the 66 lots sold reaching an average of £1,097,387 compared to Christie's £823,031

as an average for the 90 lots sold.

The international nature of the market is confirmed in the breakdown of buyers at the evening sales, which saw in addition to the traditional strength in Europe and the United States a strong interest from elsewhere in the world, with Asian buyers making 5% of the Sotheby's total and 10% of that at Christie's.

The highest value piece of both Contemporary sales, and indeed of the week of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary auctions, was achieved for Francis Bacon's Self Portrait from 1978, which reached £21,580,000 at Sotheby's. This is following the recent record achieved in New York by the same auction house for the same artist with the sale of "Study from Innocent X" for $52,680,000 (£26,581,895). Works by Bacon also featured prominently at Christie's with "Two Men Working in an Field" and the rare early work

"Landscape with Car " attaining £5,060,000 and £4,276,000 respectively. These pieces came from the collection of Elaine and Melvin Merians whose group of 19 School of London works was highlighted by Lucian Freud's portrait of Bruce Bernard. This work sold for £7,860,000, a record for the artist and at the time a new auction record for a work by a living European artist. This

proved to be short-lived however, as younger British artist Damien Hirst assumed the mantle with the £9,652,000 sale of his work "Lullaby Spring" the following evening at Sotheby's. This surpassed the figure for a Jasper Johns

attained at Christie's in New York last May to become the highest value work by any living artist and established a new auction record for Hirst's work.

Two further works by Hirst were offered at the two auction houses in order to benefit charitable causes. "Beautiful Explosion of Vanity Painting" (with

Butterflies) reached £1,140,000 at Sotheby's as part of a sequence of 5 works sold to in aid of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The works, which had been donated by British artists (Hirst, Tracey Emin, Keith Tyson, Anthony Gormley and Grayson Perry), raised £1,520,400 for the charity and established a new record for Tyson.

Christie's offered 18 works from the CAP Collection, which raised £6,602,000, a portion of which will benefit the Ron Brown Scholarship Programme for talented African-American high school students. Works from a variety of artists, Hirst's "Hydrocodone" (which sold for £412,000) included, were sold to benefit this cause. The CAP Collection also included an oil on canvas by

Chinese artist Yan Pei-Ming, which was one of 11 works from China offered at Sotheby's and Christie's. The former presented 7 works, grouped at the end of the sale, by some of the most important artists from the country. The pictures sold for £4,861,600, with Yue Minjun's "The Pope" attracting many bidders and finally selling for £2,148,000. This smashed the auction record for a work by a Chinese Contemporary artist by £800,000 and was well ahead of the other Chinese works. The remaining 10 works at both houses raised £3,827,200, bringing the average price to £382,720. This figure is well over the estimates and underlined the continued growth of this area in the world market.

Works by artists more established in the Contemporary field made up a large proportion of the evening sales at Christie's and Sotheby's, with 10 works by Lucio Fontana (for whom an auction record was set at Sotheby's) and 24

by Andy Warhol. Two Warhols at both houses exceeded £1 million while one of 15 works by the artist at Christie's reached over £2 million and another beyond £5 million. Five of the artist's works, 4 of which had high estimates ranging between £1.5 and 3.5 million however failed to sell, a possible indication of the

market shifting to level out pricing. The unsold Warhols might be further evidence that fresh, well-priced material sells, while less fresh material proves more unpredictable. In all, the evening sales saw a total of 23 record auction

prices established—15 at Christie's and 8 at Sotheby's,with 32 works selling for more than £1million.

The totals for Sotheby's and Christie's Contemporary sales were boosted to £97,021,200 and £98,833,540 respectively with the addition of the Day Sale results. Rounding off the week of sales, the day sale at Sotheby's reached a total of £24,593,600—the company's highest ever for a such an auction in Europe, while Christie's equivalent sale brought £24,760,740. Both auctions featured works that passed the £1 million barrier, with Gerhard Richter's "Abstraktes Bild" setting a record for a work of art in a day sale when it achieved £1,364,000 at Sotheby's.

The success of these sales left no doubt about the strength of the London art market, which can be credited in part to buyers, who are drawn to London by the firm presence of works by the major European artists who continue to reach new heights each season, and to consignors who are judiciously taking advantage of the market.

Contemporary Art best results:

Francis Bacon, Self Portrait: £21,580,000

Damien Hirst, Lullaby Spring: £9,652,000

Lucian Freud, Bruce Bernard: £7,860,000

Andy Warhol, Three Marilyns: £5,620,000

Francis Bacon, Two Men Working in a Field: £5,060,000

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Grillo: £4,948,000

Francis Bacon, Landscape with Car: £4,276,000

Roy Lichtenstein, Still Life with Stretcher, Mirror, Bowl of Fruit: £4,052,000

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Warrior: £2,820,000

Gerhard Richter, Teyde-Landschaft (Teyde-Landscape): £2,596,000

 Sale Totals

Sotheby's, 21-22 June

Contemporary Art Evening: £72,427,600

Contemporary Art Day: £24,593,600

Sotheby's Total: £97,021,200

Christie's, 20-21 June

Post-War & Contemporary Art

Evening:£74,072,800

Post-War & Contemporary Art Day:£24,760,740

Christie's Total:£98,833,540

Phillips de Pury, 22 June

Contemporary Art: £23,324,440

Grand Total: £219,179,180

Average Sold Lot Value(Sotheby's,Christie's & Phillips de Pury: £257,555