London Arts & Letters  

Latest Posts  |  Archive  | 

Contemporary Art Pulls in the Pounds at Sotheby's

by Zoe Strimpel
Thu, 28 Feb 2008 at 9:20 PM

Print

Send

RSS

Share:

Last night's sale of Contemporary art at Sotheby's was a good indicator that this most volatile sector of the art market is in more robust health than ever. The auction raised $189,423,299, soundly beating the estimate of $102,855,000, making it the highest total for any European Contemporary art sale to date.

Francis Bacon, who has been the darling of the Contemporary auctions for several seasons, commanded the highest bid. His "Study of Nude with Figure in a Mirror," an enigmatic full-length portrait of his muse and close friend, Henrietta Moraes, went for £19,956,500 ($39,657,979). This wasn't far behind the record price for a Bacon: £26,581,895 ($52,680,000) for "Study From Innocent X" at Sotheby's in New York in May last year.

A great appetite for Gerhard Richter shook the room, as 11 bidders tussled for his "Photo Painting Kerze (Candle)," 1983, which finally went for £7,972,500 ($15,891,584), more than three times its estimate.

And it was a big night for Lucio Fontana, who, according to the head of Contemporary art evening auctions at Sotheby's in London, Francis Outred, is "a European abstract artist finally entering the big league.� His "Concetto Spaziale, La Fine di Dio" from 1963, a golden, egg-shaped canvas, went for £10,324,500 ($20,579,826), more than double the pre-sale low estimate of £4 million ($8 million).

Chinese Contemporary art caused fireworks in October, but last night demand seemed a little more staid. The sector made a respectable total of £5,978,700 ($11,917,343), with Zhang Xiaogang’s enormous "Big Family No. 1," from 2001, topping the crop with a price of £1,700,500 ($3,389,607), falling between its lower and upper pre-sale estimates.

London Arts & Letters Homepage