Auction Review: Contemporary Art

Christie’s

40 lots offered
£19,063,350 ($31.8 million) sold total
14 percent unsold by value
12 percent unsold by lot

Phillips

40 lots offered
£5,101,350 ($8.5 million) sold total
23 percent unsold by value
25 percent unsold by lot

Sotheby’s

40 lots offered
£25,549,450 ($41.9 million) million sold total
3 percent unsold by value
7.5 percent unsold by lot

September 2009 Auction Reviews

20th-Century Design

Impressionist & Modern Art

Old Masters

Christie’s

Leslie Hindman

Heritage

Antiquorum

Bloomsbury

PIASA

Dreweatts

Van Ham

Freeman’s

Rippon Boswell & Co.

Sotheby’s

Alexander Calder Andy Warhol Edward Ruscha Jean Dubuffet Alighiero e Boetti Francis Bacon Frank Auerbach Julie Mehretu

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The Sotheby’s session on June 25 contained 40 lots, many of them fresh to market and by blue-chip names. All but three found buyers, generating a gross of £25,549,450 ($41.9 million) and sell-through rates above 90 percent.

Among the museum-caliber material that carried the sale was Jean Dubuffet’s Arabe au fusil, 1948 (est. £500-700,000; $824,000-1.2 million), which soared to £903,650 ($1.5 million), and Nicolas de Staël’s Nature morte à la carafe, 1953 (est. £500-700,000; $824,000-1.2 million), an evening star at £870,050 ($1.4 million). Work by Alexander Calder also acted as a weight bearer: The sculptor’s black hanging mobile from 1956 (est. £1.2-1.8 million; $2-3 million) fetched £1,833,250 ($3 million), while the rare standing mobile À cinq morceaux de bois, 1934 (est. £1.2-1.8 million; $2-3 million), was chased by at least five bidders, Iwan Wirth and the Nahmads among them, before falling to the London dealership Theobald Jennings for £2,617,250 ($4.3 million). Top-lot honors, however, were reserved for Andy Warhol, whose Mrs. and Mrs. Brown (Tunafish Disaster), 1963 (est. £3.5-4.5 million; $5.8-7.4 million), was snagged by a telephone bidder for £3,737,250 ($6.2 million).

Although living artists accounted for less than half the session’s roster, the sole record set was for the young Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu, whose Untitled (Dervish), 2005 (est. £200-300,000; $330-495,000), brought £241,250 ($398,000).

Phillips’s hour-long session, on June 29, was a better test of the vital signs of living artists, who accounted for 35 of the 40 lots. The house sold 30 of its offering, taking in £5,101,350 ($8.5 million) and suffering only one major buy-in: Richard Prince’s 2005 Spiritual America IV, a glitzy C-print of a grown-up Brooke Shields that was estimated to go for between £400,000 and £600,000 ($636-954,000).

Among high-profile successes, Ed Ruscha’s aptly titled That Was Then This Is Now, 1989, sold comfortably within its estimate of £600,000 to £800,000 ($989,000-$1.3 million), going for £713,250 ($1.2 million). Yue Minjun’s large-scale untitled 2005 composition of his signature smiling men flanked by a flock of birds (est. £250-300,000; $412-495,000) was bought by a telephone bidder for £421,250 ($695,000). And a 2004 work done in colored pencil by Mark Grotjahn (est. £70,000-100,000; $115-165,000) went to New York’s L&M Arts for £145,250 ($240,000) .

On June 30, Christie’s gave the summer season a reassuring final act with a sale that raked in £19,063,350 ($31.8 million). Of the five works that failed to find buyers, two were by Lucio Fontana. The Italian superstar’s Concetto spaziale, 1957, however, flew past its high estimate of £400,000 ($659,000) to realize £713,250 ($1.2 million). A monochrome diptych by Alighiero Boetti matched this sum, leaping over its high estimate of £350,000 ($577,850) and setting a record for the artist, whose work typically trails that of his older Arte Povera cohort in price.

Indeed, it turned out to be a night of evening the scales, as Frank Auerbach caught up with Francis Bacon, his legendary School of London peer. The hammer price of Bacon’s decidedly mediocre Study for Portrait, 1986-88, £870,050 ($1.4 million), was below its low estimate. Meanwhile, Auerbach’s Tree in Mornington Crescent, 1991-92, attracted multiple bidders — Gilbert Lloyd, of London’s Marlborough Fine Art, among them — who drove the 50-by-54-inch, thickly impastoed cityscape to £881,250 ($1.5 million) and ultimately into the arms of the London dealer Ivor Braka. "There’s now plenty of room for Auerbach’s prices to move up again," says Braka.