The Art Newspaper

Weekend auctions: shaky start for Sotheby’s

By Melanie Gerlis. From Frieze daily edition
Published online: 18 October 2008

The contemporary auctions have become a familiar fixture as the culmination of Frieze week, with many international collectors in town. Any nerves about the market did not deter Sotheby’s, Phillips and Christie’s bringing nearly 1,000 lots valued at up to £184m (a similar amount to last year) under the hammer between 17 and 21 October. But there are signs that the auctioneers have been more cautious in their offerings this year. The three evening sales have shrunk from 272 to 182 lots and the number of works that all houses are prepared to guarantee at these major sales has been slashed from 18% to 9% this year.

Friday report (Sotheby’s)

Auctioneer Oliver Barker began the sale with pace, hoping to inject some enthusiasm, which eventually fizzled out. A total of 17 of the 62 lots failed to find buyers including one of Sotheby’s two top lots: Gerhard Richter’s urban portrait Jerusalem, 1995, (est £5m-£7m). It, like a number of other lots, failed to attract a single bid. This work was guaranteed “from an important European collection”, and there is little doubting its quality: a later version is in the Frieda Burda collection in Baden-Baden.

The results mask the fact that prior to the sale Sotheby’s approached consignors to lower reserves in view of the negative economic background. This was evident with lots such as Damien Hirst’s The Blood of Christ, 2005, which was hammered down at £700,000 (est £1m-£1.5m). Another work by Richter, Abstraktes Bild (Rot), 1991, (est £3m-£4m, guaranteed) was sold for £2.5m, and Subodh Gupta’s Curry 2 (1), 2005, sold for £200,000 (est £250,000-£350,000).

A number of works in the sale were secured on a single, winning bid, including another top lot, Warhol Skulls, 1976. This 10-part series of acrylic and silkscreen skulls (est £5m-£7m, guaranteed) went to the Mugrabi family for a hammer price of £3.85m, suggesting that bargains are to be had by those with strong nerves.

The sale also included five works donated for the ICA’s 60th anniversary of which two, one work each by Anish Kapoor and Howard Hodgkin, did not sell.

Healer, 2006, by Ghanian artist El Anatsui, set a first record for the artist at auction after two previous buy-ins, however. The work was hammered down at £290,000 (est £180,000-£250,000).

Overall the sale total was £22.8m (2007, £34.9m, est £30.6m-£42.8m); 72.6% by lot (2007, 83.8%); 72.5% by value (2007, 88.2%). Collector Larry Warsh, like other collectors and dealers, put a brave face on it when he said: “They did well. The world is still more dire than the sale.” Sotheby’s next contemporary art sale is an auction on Monday (20 October) at 10am.

Saturday preview (Phillips de Pury)

All eyes will be on Phillips de Pury on Saturday as the auction house hosts its first major sales since announcing it has sold itself to the Russian luxury goods company Mercury Group. It had been rumoured that the company was in financial trouble, particularly after a heavily-guaranteed and lacklustre sale in June.

This time, Phillips de Pury has a selection of works by emerging and established Arab and Iranian artists at its day and evening sales (2pm and 7pm on Saturday), including calligrapher Mohammed Ehsai’s silver-leaf and oil Mohabat, 2006 (est £75,000-£95,000).

Other highlights include Takashi Murakami’s 23-foot steel, fibreglass and paint figure, Tongari-kun, 2004 (est £3.5m-£4.5m), from a series of four, another example of which currently opens the artist’s travelling exhibition now at the Frankfurt Museum of Modern Art.

Sunday preview (Christie’s)

The so-called “evening” sale at 4pm on Sunday is the highest value auction of the weekend with up to £75m of art on offer. This is supported by a heavyweight selection of post-war works, including Lucian Freud’s 1956-57 portrait of Francis Bacon, one of only two oils he painted of his fellow artist (the other was stolen from an exhibition in Berlin in 1988 and has not been recovered). While there is a sense among dealers that the auction houses may have exhausted the market’s appetite for Freuds and Bacons, this combination may yet prove too tempting to resist—not least because the work has been in the same family collection since 1972. Christie’s also has the honour of selling the highest valued auction lot of the week: Lucio Fontana’s black Concetto Spaziale, La fine di dio, 1963, which is guaranteed and expected to bring in around £12m. This would beat the artist’s auction record set by Sotheby’s in February when a 1963 gold work from his “Concetto Spaziale” series sold for £10.3m.