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Contemporary art sales 1992: Saatchi succeeds at Sotheby's and Freud nude provokes Christie's bidding war

Contemporary art sales '92 auction report

Roger Bevan
1 January 1993
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After his frenzied performance on the rostrum for the Impressionist sale, Simon de Pury returned for the Sotheby’s sale of Contemporary Art on Thursday 3 December. He found buyers for seventy-four lots which raised £3.24 million ($4.86 million), but nineteen lots failed to sell. The most important casualty appeared to be Francis Bacon’s “Study of a Nude with a Figure in a Mirror” (lot 34, unpublished est.£1 million), which attracted no bids and was bought-in at £680,000 ($1.02 million), but was sold to an unidentified Continental dealer or collector after the sale for £735,000 ($1.1 million). The session’s highest price was paid for Andy Warhol’s “Four Marilyns” (lot 32, est.£400,000-500,000), which sold to a telephone bidder for £555,000 ($832,500). Warhol’s “Most Wanted Man No. 4” (lot 30, est.£60,000-80,000), which had been consigned by Charles Saatchi, was bought by a Californian collector for £125,000 ($187,500). Saatchi was the vendor of two important London scenes, Frank Auerbach’s dramatic nightscape of Mornington Crescent station (lot 53, est.£150,000-200,000) which was bought by an Israeli collector bidding in the room for £135,000 ($202,500), and Leon Kossoff’s swimming pool in Willesden (lot 59, est.£150,000-200,000) which sold to a private collector for £190,000 ($285,000). An important nude portrait of his wife, Elke, by Georg Baselitz (lot 52, est.£300,000-350,000) was picked up inexpensively by Jim Cohan of Anthony d’Offay for £150,000 ($225,000). Disappointments included Lucian Freud’s beautiful head of East End entrepreneur, Charlie Thomas (lot 33, est.£100,000-150,000), one of half-a-dozen works consigned by private dealer, Richard Salmon, Sean Scully’s “Double” (lot 75, est.£50,000-60,000) and Gerhard Richter’s “Vogel” (lot 58, est. £120,000-150,000), a marvellous abstract canvas of 1982 from the collection of Lewis Manilow, which failed to reach its reserve although there was a bid of £100,000 ($150,000) from Düsseldorf dealer, Helge Achenbach.

In the afternoon, Guy Jennings presided over a tediously slow but rather successful sale of Contemporary Art at Christie’s. Eighty lots sold for a respectable total of £4.19 million ($6.29 million), with only nine lots failing to find buyers. New York dealer Joseph Mugrabi paid the session’s top price of £300,000 ($450,000) for Yves Klein’s impressive sponge painting “RE 26 Rosa” (lot 28, est.£250,000-300,000). Other strong prices included Dubuffet’s “Petite Musique pour Edith” (lot 11, est.£180,000-240,000) which sold to a telephone bidder identified as an American dealer for £270,000 ($405,000), and a beautiful stabile by Calder (lot 41, est. £70,000-90,000) which was purchased for £173,000 ($259,500) by Davlyn’s Joe Nehmad who, with his brother David, were conspicuous bidders at all the sales of the week. Two recent abstract compositions by Gerhard Richter attracted keen competition, “Untitled 649-1” (lot 75, est. £40,000-60,000) being purchased by a Californian collector for £72,000 (1108,000) and “Untitled 666-4” (lot 77, est.£30,000-40,000) selling to a telephone bidder for £58,000 ($87,000).

There were, however, no bidders for Richter’s grand and elegaic seascape (lot 52, est. £200,000-250,000) where a cracking paint surface caused concern. The afternoon’s surprise was the determined competition for Lucian Freud’s small and rather unattractive nude portrait (lot 55, est. £50,000-70,000) which sold to a telephone bidder for £115,000 ($172,500).

Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Saatchi sells again'

Auction housesCollectorsAuctionsAndy WarholArt dealersCharles Saatchi
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