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London Art Sale Breaks Records

Record auction prices at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening

by Paul Wheatley | June 30th 2011 | 06:00 pm

The star of this London show was the never-before-seen-at-auction Francis Bacon’s 1961 Crouching Nude, and with various records broken, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening late on Wednesday, June 29nd, was one of those auctions that auctioneers, sellers and buyers live for.

: 'Debbie Harry' (1980), Andy Warhol

To a packed auction room at Sotheby’s, the Contemporary Art Evening auction surpassed all expectations, hauling in GBP 108.8m and representing a record for any London sale of contemporary art. The Duerckheim Collection, a superb presentation of German art from the 1960s and 1970s, fetched GBP 60.4m alone, almost doubling pre-sale expectations.

: 'Crouching Nude' (1961), Francis Bacon

With numerous contemporary masters up for auction, the sale was suffused with anticipation. Raising GBP 8.33m, it will surprise few that Bacon’s Crouching Nude was the top sale. However, there were numerous highlights, such as a record set at auction for a Georg Baselitz, when his Spekulatius (1965, part of the significant Hero series of 191965/66) sold for GBP 3.23m.

Three works by Gerhard Richter made it into the evening’s top ten: his Telefonierender (Man on the Telephone, 1965) raised GBP 3.23m; Mädchen im Liegestuhl (Girl in Deckchair, 1964) soared past expectations of GBP 1.2-1.8m before settling just above GBP 4m; and his 1024 Farben (1024 Colours, 1974) exceeded the expected GBP 1-1.5m, going to a US buyer for GBP 4.3m.

Andy Warhol’s portrait of Debbie Harry (1980) went for a modest GBP 3.7m, and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (1981) became the third highest sale of the day when selling for GBP 5.4m.

: 'Dschungel' ('Jungle', 1967), Sigmar Polke

For many observers, however, it was works by the German artist Sigmar Polke, who died in 2010, that stole the show. His Kopf (Head, 1966) far exceeded pre-sale expectations of GBP 800,000-1.2m when selling for GBP 3.7m; his Stadtbild II (City Painting II, 1968), which was estimated at GBP 2-3m, raised GBP 4.6m, and the GBP 5.75m for his Dschungel (Jungle, 1967) was around 1.7m above the high pre-sale estimate. It was also the second highest sale of the day and a record for the artist at auction.

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