AUCTION REVIEWS

Postwar & Contemporary Art

By Judd Tully

Published: September 1, 2008

Christie's

The second-highest sum for a Lucian Freud, Ł11,801,250 ($23.5 million), was achieved at Christie's by his "Naked Portrait with Reflection."

Sotheby's

A record for a living female artist, Ł3,177,250 ($6.3 million), was set at Sotheby's by Marlene Dumas's "The Visitor."

Phillips de Pury & Company
91 lots offered
£24,483,000 ($48 million) sold total
30.9 percent unsold by value
34.1 percent unsold by lot

Christie's
58 lots offered
£86,241,600 ($171.9 million) sold total
16 percent unsold by value
17 percent unsold by lot

Sotheby's
75 lots offered
£94,701,550 ($188.9 million) sold total
10.5 percent unsold by value
5.3 percent unsold by lot

Damien Hirst Willem de Kooning Lucian Freud Francis Bacon Jean-Michel Basquiat Gilbert and George Yves Klein Jeff Koons

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The firm’s prize consignment was an incredible trove of property from the German collectors Helga and Walther Lauffs. The 12 lots fetched £18,983,000 ($37.8 million), more than double their combined high estimate of £8.9 million ($17.6 million). Topping the group was Yves Klein’s 1961 abstraction ant131, created by a nude model covered in blue paint lying on a sheet of paper spread on the floor (est. £700–900,000; $1.4–1.8 million), which achieved £4,185,250 ($8.3 million).

Moments after the marathon two-and-a-half-hour sale ended, the visibly drained Sotheby’s auctioneer Tobias Meyer remarked, “This is a market driven by art lovers.”

Yes, and very rich ones.

"Postwar & Contemporary Art" originally appeared in the September 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2008 Table of Contents.

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