Christie's

The second-highest sum for a Lucian Freud, £11,801,250 ($23.5 million), was achieved at Christie's by his "Naked Portrait with Reflection."

Sotheby's

A record for a living female artist, £3,177,250 ($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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A surfeit of underwhelming and overestimated property in Phillips’s late-afternoon “evening” sale at its impressive new headquarters on Howick Place led to a rash of buy-ins of lots, many of them guaranteed, by such market favorites as Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Rudolf Stingel and Zhang Xiaogang. Even so, eight artist records were set, including one for Banks Violette, whose ghostly graphite-on-paper image of galloping horses, burnout (fadeaway), vol.1, 2003 (est. £50– 70,000; $99,000–139,000), sold to a phone bidder for £205,250 ($400,000).

Five works breached the £1 million mark, and 10 made more than $1 million. The best performer was Willem de Kooning’s 1984 abstraction Untitled (est. £1.5–2.5 million; $3–5 million), which went to the London private dealer Ivor Braka for £3,513,250 ($6.9 million). Another highlight was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 skull composition Untitled (est. £1–1.5 million; $2–3 million), bought by the New York dealer Jose Mugrabi for £1,385,250 ($2.7 million).

On June 30 at Christie’s, 18 of the 48 works that sold brought more than £1 million each, and 30 broke $1 million. Three trophies accounted for almost half the evening’s tally—Christie’s highest ever for contemporary art in Europe. Of this trio, Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for Self-Portrait, 1975 (est. on request, in excess of £10 million; $19.8 million), was the most expensive, selling to a telephone bidder for £17,289,250 ($34.5 million). The New York dealer and Bacon estate representative Tony Shafrazi and the London diamond mogul Laurence Graff were among the posse of underbidders. Remarkably, the price fetched ranks as only the seventh highest for a Bacon at auction, behind those for six paintings that have all sold since May 2007.

Despite the hype surrounding Koons’s nine-and-a-half-ton stainless-steel Balloon Flower (Magenta), 1995–2000 (est. on request, about £12 million; $23.8 mil­lion), it attracted only two bidders, both on the phone. Their brief one-upmanship, however, drove the price to a record £12,921,250 ($25.8 mil­lion). Christie’s had guaranteed the consignor, the Dallas collector Howard Rachofsky, a sum near the estimate and had spent a small fortune shipping the sculpture and installing it in the adjacent St. James Square. The third-costliest work was Lucian Freud’s Naked Portrait with Reflection, 1980 (est. £10–15 million; $20–29 million), showing a female model reclining on a torn sofa behind which are glimpsed the artist’s feet. It sold to a phone bidder for £11,801,250 ($23.5 million).

Among the eight artists who achieved records were Gilbert & George, whose black-and-white pastiche To Her Majesty, 1973 (est. £400– 600,000; $790,000–1.2 million), rocketed to £1,889,250 ($3.8 million). The underbidder was Robert Mnuchin, of New York’s L&M Arts. The work last sold at Christie’s New York in November 1999 for $123,000.

Sotheby’s ended the week triumphantly on July 1 with 11 artist records and the highest average lot price— £1.3 million ($2.6 million)—the house has ever achieved for a contemporary sale in Europe. Once again the high earner was a Bacon, Study for Head of George Dyer, 1967 (est. in excess of £8 million; $15.9 million), which sold to a telephone bidder for £13,761,250 ($27.4 million). The consignor had paid £2,000 for the 14-by-12-inch oil in March 1967 at London’s Marlborough Fine Art, according to the gallery’s Gilbert Lloyd.

Another noteworthy lot was Marlene Dumas’s The Visitor, a 1995 painting of five prostitutes facing a closed door (est. £800,000–1.2 million; $1.6– 2.4 million). It attracted seven bidders and soared to a record £3,177,250 ($6.3 million), making it the most expensive painting by a living female artist ever sold at auction. The New York private dealer Nancy Whyte was the underbidder.

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.