Sothebys London Contemporary Sale Exceeds £30M

Bridget Riley Andy Warhol Willem de Kooning Gerhard Richter David Hockney Daniel Richter Welcome to the Bazaar Andy Goes to China

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It was the firm’s second-highest result for any U.K. or European contemporary sale, just shy of the £30.3 million record set here in February.

Eleven artist records were set, and only six of the 68 lots offered failed to find buyers. Nine lots fetched over £1 million (14 lots topped $1 million).

TOP FIVE PRICES:

Lot #8—David Hockney, The Splash; Sold for: £2,929,000/$5,389,000 (est. £2.2-3 million)

Widely viewed as one of the artist’s iconic works, the Modernist house and aqua-blue swimming pool in this 1966 painting proved a great backdrop for the graphic splash created by the unseen diver.

Hockney has said it took him two weeks to paint the splash segment, a bravura passage frozen in time.

At least three bidders chased the six-foot-square, California-themed work that at one time was owned by entertainment mogul David Geffen.

London dealer Ivor Braka wound up as the underbidder to New York dealer Nick Maclean of Eykyn Maclean.

It easily eclipsed the previous high-water mark of $3.6 million set at Christie’s New York in May with A Neat Lawn from 1967.

Splash last sold at auction back in 1973 at Sotheby’s London for a then rousing £25,000.

This time around, Sotheby’s had guaranteed a secret, minimum price for the picture in return for a bigger slice of the upside, so the gamble must have paid off handsomely

2. Lot 26—Gerhard Richter, Tante Marianne; Sold for: £2,136,000/$3,942,202 (est. £1.5-2 million)

Based on a Richter-family snapshot from 1932 featuring the four-month-old future artist perched on the knees of his smiling, 14-year old aunt Marianne, the seemingly innocent picture is steeped in tragedy.

Just five years later, Marianne was interned for suspected schizophrenia, sterilized as part of a massive Nazi program and literally starved to death.

The revelation in a recent biography of Richter caused a media sensation in Germany though the bidding was relatively understated. An anonymous telephone bidder out-gunned the Oslo-based Galerie K.

3. Lot 10—Lucian Freud, John Deakin; Sold for: £1,688,000/$3,115,373 (est. £1.5-2 million)

This page-size oil portrait from 1963-64 of the big-eared and ruddy-faced photographer, who famously chronicled the School of London artists of which Freud was such a close part, demonstrates Freud’s compelling style. Deakin died in 1972.

The painting last sold at Christie’s London in June of 1997 for £892,500/$1,488,250.

This time it sold to an anonymous telephone bidder, with New York’s Acquavella Galleries, which represents Freud on the primary market, one of the underbidders.

A second Freud entry, After Breakfast, featuring a reclining nude from 2001 (est. £1.6-2 million) failed to sell and bought in at £1.3 million. It carried a guarantee for the seller.

4. Lot 23—Willem de Kooning, Untitled XXI; Sold for: £1,688,000/$3,115,373 (est. £1.5-2 million) (tied with the Freud’s Lot #10)

This decidedly spare yet grandly scaled canvas (80” x 70”) is a potent example of de Kooning’s late work, dismissed by some and heralded by others.

Instead of richly layered and juicily painted passages, the 1986 canvas takes on a minimal and almost ghostly look, more drawing than painting and faintly colored.

The paint is literally scraped away, leaving less distinct yet fluid impressions on the canvas.

Some critics dismiss the late work as that of an Alzheimer-addled artist, crippled by the mind-robbing disease and years of heavy drinking. Others hail it as the refined distillations of a master, freed from past restraints.

Judging by the price and the determination of two anonymous bidders, one on the telephone and another seated in the room, the late canvas proves to be a winner.

5. Lot #36—Andy Warhol, The Scream (After Edvard Munch); Sold for: £1,464,000/$2,701,958 (est. £300,000-500,000)

It was a classic example of auction fever. Two bidders slugged it out, relentlessly driving up the price for this 1984 work caricaturizing in cartoon fashion the famous Munch painting. It set another jaw-dropping price for late and even obscure Warhols.