Boosted by Klein (Again), the Market Continues Its Streak at Christie's

Courtesy Christie's

Martin Kippenberger's "Untitled" (from the series "Dear Painter Paint Me") earned £850,000. It had been estimated at £800,000–1,200,000.

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Forty-six of the 51 lots offered sold for a svelte buy-in rate of just 10 percent by lot and four percent by value. One lot sold for over five million pounds, nine went for over one million pounds, and sixteen vaulted over a million dollars; four artist records were broken. That compares very favorably to the anemic £8.39 million achieved at Christie's 29-lot sale last February. As with Sotheby’s buoyant sale on Wednesday evening, the results further restored market confidence.

On the basis of the geographic breakdown of buyers according to lots sold, the United States was on the weak side, with 22 percent of works going to Americans, compared to Europe, which accounted for 41 percent of the sales, and Britain, which made up 33 percent. Four percent went to Asia.

London–based jewelry magnate Laurence Graff was a major buyer, nabbing two of the top lots, including the Yves Klein cover lot, the electric blue and flame-thrown Anthropométrie (ANT 5), from 1962 (est. £5-7 million), for £4,129,250 ($6,441,630). It last sold at Sotheby’s London in June 2001 for £388,500.

“It’s the first Klein in my collection,” Graff said moments after the sale, “I’ve wanted to buy one for a long time and I remember the one that came up ten years ago. I consider it a masterpiece, and it could be Klein’s last painting.” The artist died in 1962.

Graff also snared the major Pop art piece of the week, one of Andy Warhol’s 1981 Dollar Sign paintings (est. £1.2-1.8 million), for £2,281,250 ($3,558,750). The 90-by-70-inch silkscreen on canvas last sold at auction at Sotheby’s New York in November 2005 for $1,584,000, suggesting that pundits who said the recent downturn sent the market back to 2005 price levels need to recalibrate their instruments.

Graff also did some damage when it came to the younger set, paying a staggering and record £601,250 ($937,950) for Matthew Day Jackson’s Bucky, 2007 (est. £30-40,000), a wood-burned drawing and mother-of-pearl inlay portrait of inventor and designer Buckminister Fuller. It crushed the artist's former auction ‘record’ set at Christie’s New York last September, when What is to give light must endure the burning (Triptych) made $18,750. Mega-collector François Pinault is known to be a big fan of Jackson’s. Another work by an upstart artist, Joana Vasconcelos’s Marilyn, 2009, a giant-scaled sculpture of high-heel shoes comprised of stainless steel pans, lids, and cement  (est. £100-150,000), sold for a record £505,250 ($788,190). The refulgent piece was inspired by the film siren’s footgear in “The Seven Year Itch."

Christie’s also took claim for selling the most expensive picture of the week as another Yves Klein, the 1961 Relief Sponge or (RE 47 II) (est. £5-7 million), one of only two extant works in the artist's gold leaf, sponge, and pebbles format, went to a German speaking couple seated in the salesroom for £5,865,250 ($9,149,790). It was the same pair, believed to be based in Switzerland and bidding on behalf of a private Swiss client, who bought Klein, Fontana, and Warhol at Sotheby’s on Wednesday evening. At Christie's, the delicate and rare relief in a horizontal format had been boldly previewed without a protective Plexiglas frame, enabling curious viewers to blow on the sponges, making the gold leaf dance.

The Klein-Fontana-Manzoni triangle of 60’s-era artists continued to soar as Piero Manzoni’s white kaolin on canvas Achrome, 1960 (est. £600-800,000), made £1,273,250 ($2,248,350). It last sold at auction at Christie’s New York in November 2003 for $477,900.

In the record-breaking column, Antoni Tapies’ powerful oil and sand on canvas abstraction, Blanc amb signe vermellos (White with Reddish Sign), 1963 (est. £300-400,000), sold to London-based private dealer Rosario Nasal for £993,250 ($1,549,470). The sale also had a high-flier in an 11-part, red ballpoint ink on card conceptual composition by Alighiero Boetti, Ononimo, 1973 (est. £250-350,000) — a conflation of the Italian words "anonimo" ("anonymous") and "omonimo" ("namesake") — that sold to a telephone bidder for a record £1,049,250 ($1,636,830).

The market for Martin Kippenberger, meanwhile, continued to display strength with Fliegender Tanga (Flying Tango), 1982-83 (est. £800,000-1.2 million), a multi-paneled oil and mixed media collage on canvas that sold to New York private dealer Philippe Segalot for £2,561,250 ($3,995,550).

“Confidence is back,” said Segalot, moments after the sale ended. “It’s really amazing.”

This resurgence was further suggested by the sale of Richard Prince's Very Private Nurse #1, 2003 (est. £1.2-1.8 million), which improved the artist's battered market fortunes when it sold to a telephone bidder for £1,721,250 ($2,685,150). The underbidder was Jose Mugrabi. The New York dealer had better luck with Damien Hirst’s production-line-redolent 36-square-inch Daemon, 2007, of butterflies and household gloss paint on canvas (est. £300-400,000), that made £313,250 ($488,670). Gagosian Gallery was the underbidder.

Kashmiri artist Raqib Shaw’s rhinestone-encrusted Garden of Earthly Delights XIV, 2005 (est. £500-700,000), was rescued by his London gallery, White Cube, which bought it for £577,250 ($900,510). London School artist Frank Auerbach’s distorted and thickly impastoed Head of J.Y.M., 1973 (est. £900,000-1.2 million), went to London and New York private dealer Nick Maclean of Eykyn Maclean for £1,441,250 ($2,248,350).

If there was any disappointing performance — and that’s hard to measure in this heated climate — it was the price realized for Peter Doig’s 1993 Concret Cabin West Side (est. £2-3 million), which was expected to match or exceed expectations. It sold to a telephone bidder for £2,057,250 ($3,209,310), including the buyer’s premium. There were also a handful of buy-ins of difficult or over-estimated works by Auerbach, Jenny Saville, R.B. Kitaj, Neo Rauch, and Juan Munoz.

But otherwise it was a standout sale. “The big battle now,” said Francis Outred, Christie’s European head of contemporary art, throwing a note of caution in the air, is that “with each success, the vendors get more desire for higher estimates, and the moment it goes too high, the market will reject it and won’t bite.”

Phillips de Pury & Company wraps up the evening action tonight.