Last week, Frieze Los Angeles shed some California sunshine on the art market, but tonight (March 6) the situation in London was a little gloomy. The Modern & Contemporary Evening Sale at Sotheby’s, the year’s first major auction, did little to ease the recession. There is a strong sense of caution in the trading industry.
The 60 lots across the block achieved £82.2m (£99.7m including fees). This was within the revised estimate of £74.8m to £106.5m, but significantly down on the £136.9m (£172.6m including fees) the auction house had won. . From a comparable evening sale in London last March. (Fees are not included in estimates such as Hammer Price.)
Tonight’s auction, which lasted a brisk two hours, was solid, if not disastrous. Through Sotheby’s de facto guarantee he pre-sold 21 lots (about a third of the sales volume), almost all of which were manufactured by third parties. Some shippers clearly remain cautious. Of the 70 works originally put up for auction, 10 lots, or 14%, were eventually withdrawn. They include Picasso’s Blue Period portrait, which was the second most expensive item on sale that night and was expected to sell for between £5 million and £7 million, and Josef Albers’ The painting – estimated to cost between £800,000 and £1 million – was removed about an hour into proceedings.
The sell-through rate for the evening was a respectable 90% per lot (though that number drops to 77% if you count withdrawals as qualified lots).Of the works that were actually offered, six did not sell, including one by Marc Chagall. La Ferme, La Village (1954-1962), estimated at £1.5 million to £2 million.
The star of the night was another Picasso. Sotheby’s press department explained: Homme a la pipe (1968), a work painted by the artist when he was 87 years old, depicting a “brave musketeer bullfighter”. It had never been put up for auction until tonight. The work, which has an estimate of between £8 million and £12 million, sparked the longest bidding war of the sale. It was a four-minute battle between three telephone bidders and one in-person bidder. The painting was ultimately sold by phone through Sotheby’s Swiss chairman, Caroline Lang, with a final bid of £11.7 million (£13.7 million including fees).
pablo picasso, Homme a la pipe (1968).
Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
As she took to the podium, Sotheby’s Europe Chair Helena Newman reminded the audience that this year also marks the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris. That there was no section on the night dedicated to the once-dominant sales category suggests how dramatically its fortunes have changed recently (although the auction was not closely related to the opening of Tefaf Maastricht). The overlap likely also divided the attention of major consignors, collectors, and dealers). Moreover, as Newman rightly said after the auction, “Many of these paintings hang in the Musée d’Orsay. We don’t mind waiting a generation until we find the right one.”
Of tonight’s eight Impressionist works, only two were created to Monet’s acclaim. Arbre aux Bors de l’eau, Printemps a Giverny (1885) and Paul Signac’s brilliant 1906 painting of the Bay of Saint-Tropez, both of which sold for £6.5 million (£7.7 million including fees) against the same high estimate of £7 million. Alfred Sisley’s Landscape (estimated at £700,000 to £1 million) passed.
Refreshingly, “The Now” section, where Sotheby’s typically front-loads new auction records in major multi-division sales, begins with artists in their 70s rather than those just out of graduate school. Ta. Takako Yamaguchi is making a comeback with her well-received solo exhibition at New York’s Orthusser Project last year and her participation in the 2024 Whitney Biennial. Her momentum will no doubt be strengthened tonight by the new high score under the hammer achieved by her captivating 1994 painting. Catherine and Midnight, which grossed £700,000 (£889,000 including fees), far exceeding the top target of £600,000. This was followed by Victorman’s auction record. chandler (2013) quadrupled their strategically conservative top dollar of £80,000 to earn £320,000 (£406,400 including fees).
Takako Yamaguchi Catherine and Midnight (1992) Sets artist record for £889,000 (including fees)
Provided by Sotheby’s
Fittingly, the excitement stopped when Thomas Schütte’s sculpture, depicting a figure literally stuck in the mud, arrived. It was followed by a 2007 canvas by Nicole Eisenman, which sold for £240,000, below the reserve price of £250,000. beer gardenwhich quickly became the first pass of the night, against expectations of between £500,000 and £700,000.
It took three more lots for sales to get out of the quagmire, courtesy of Etel Adnan Untitled (circa 1970), a classic example of the colorful, collage-like paintings for which she is best known. It attracted four bidders and sold for a record £350,000 (£444,500 including fees) for the Lebanese-American poet and artist who passed away in 2021.
Another work by a female artist brought an additional jolt of energy to the venue.The charm of Françoise Giraud Portrait of Genevieve of Columbus (1944) was given by the artist to media mogul Arianna Huffington and sold from her collection. In the most intense bidding of the night, the painting sold for £570,000 (£723,900 including fees), almost triple the highest bid of £200,000.
Françoise Giraud’s Portrait of Genevieve of Columbus (1944)
Provided by Sotheby’s
This propulsive result was quickly followed by a sculpture of Gilot by her former lover Pablo Picasso.it’s his Tête de femme (1951) was a relatively unremarkable performer, eventually creeping up to its low estimate of £2.5m (and reaching almost £3.1m including fees), but tastes had shifted considerably from its portrayal. It may be a sign of what happened. of About women and depictions by woman.
Tonight’s top lot at Sotheby’s (Picasso’s aforementioned) is also a sign of the times. Homme a la pipe) The valuation was just shy of eight figures, especially considering that Christie’s will be leading the highly anticipated £50 million sale of Magritte at tomorrow’s London evening sale. Mr. Newman brilliantly framed this fact as a post-sale positive. She defined tonight’s auction as more “consistent” and “evenly distributed” with “less reliance on trophy lots,” but this meant the auction would be held on a “lot-by-lot” basis. Ta. She added that many of her pieces for sale have never been exhibited before or are making their debut at a maker’s evening sale.
Near the end of the auction, a last-minute burst of energy brought in some of the highest bids of the night, including a work by René Magritte. composition of the coast (1935-36) was exhibited at the artist’s retrospective exhibition at Tate Liverpool in 2011. The painting surpassed the highest price of £2.5m and grossed £2.8m (£3.4m including fees).
Still, the strong end to the sale could not offset the 40% total achieved at a comparable Sotheby’s auction last March. We’ll see if Christie’s and Phillips can do better to clear the clouds that still linger over the post-2023 market.