Auction Report

Sunny £13.2m 1960s David Hockney brightens Sotheby's Frieze week evening sale

The small 23-lot contemporary art auction last night realised a total of £37.5m

Lucian Freud's Ria leads Christie's Frieze week evening sale at £11.8m

Despite some tense moments and a difficult market, the event proved solid, 'affirming' the auction house's decision to scrap June sales

Amid 'more selective, more cautious' market, Christie's Hong Kong sale notches $134m

The firm's first major sale in its new Hong Kong headquarters saw spirited bidding for contemporary works and regional records for paintings by Van Gogh and Monet

Muted Old Master evening sales in London provide relative bargains but no fireworks

Slim auctions at Christie's and Sotheby's saw a rediscovered Quentin Metsys and a modestly priced Botticelli come to the block

Auctionsanalysis

Sotheby’s Modern and contemporary sale in London nets a tepid £83.6m and prompts question—is the summer auction season over?

Bright spots in the heavily guaranteed auction included a £15m Basquiat and competition for the collection of Ralph I. Goldenberg

‘Electric’ mood at Heffel’s spring sales in Toronto leads to new auction records for Mary Pratt and Takao Tanabe

Works by Jean Paul Riopelle, Emily Carr, Tom Thomson and other titans of Canadian art history contributed to the evening’s total take of C$22.6m

Art marketanalysis

Generous guarantees and a giant Warhol net a healthy $346.5m for Christie's Modern evening sale in New York

The reassuring result was a marked increase from last year's equivalent auction—despite a cyberattack that has taken down the auction house's website

Auctionsanalysis

Christie’s marathon evening sales in London make a within-estimate £163m

The 20th/21st century and Art of the Surreal auctions were up 18.5% by value on their March 2023 versions

Phillips’s evening sale of 20th-century and contemporary art in London comes up short, despite healthy mid-level bidding

The 27-lot sale brought in £10.9m without fees after three works were pulled and another three failed to sell

Sotheby’s Modern and contemporary evening sale in London makes 40% less than last year

The auction house made £82m before fees and set records for Etel Adnan and Takako Yamaguchi

Art marketanalysis

Works by Canadian abstractionist Jean-Paul Riopelle rack up $8m at Heffel’s evening sale in Toronto

The two-part auction, coinciding with the centenary of Riopelle's birth, took in $17.2m in total

Brisk Sotheby's Modern evening sale in New York delivers moderate results

The auction, spanning Monet to Miró, made $190.3m—just above its low estimate—and was preceded by the record-breaking sale of a Ferrari car

Christie’s 20th century evening sale in New York defies fears of a jittery market

Swan song of veteran auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen made $640.8m—the house's highest total for a non-single-owner sale in six years

Sotheby's sale of Emily Fisher Landau's collection brings modest result, despite $139m Picasso portrait

The evening's total take of $406.4m was a sign of a stability—albeit one under-girded by guarantees and third-party backing—in a jittery market

Jitters, few jolts at Phillips's 20th century & contemporary evening sale in London

Results offered at least modest reassurance at the house’s premier Frieze Week auction

Christie’s brings in a solid £96.5m across back-to-back Frieze Week evening auctions in London

The evening kicked off with a sale of 20th- and 21st-century art, followed by works from the collection of the late businessman Sam Josefowitz

‘The market has changed’: Sotheby’s scrapes together £45.6m from Frieze Week double-header in London

The auction house’s The Now sale of ultra-contemporary art was a success, but its marquee contemporary art sale came up well short of expectations

Auctionsanalysis

Long-lost canvas by Flemish painter Michael Sweerts propels Christie's Old Master sale in London to its best result in seven years

The auction house made £53.9m (with fees) from 38 lots, and saw a new record established for Fra Angelico

Auctionsanalysis

Christie's Modern and contemporary evening sale in London plummets 66% from last year's equivalent auction

Few big-ticket consignments and New York's turbo-charged May sales marred tonight's performance

Paintings by Alex Colville and Emily Carr top the bill at Heffel’s big spring auctions in Toronto

The Canadian auction house also saw strong results from works by members of the Group of Seven and a soaring Warhol print

Works by Klimt and Magritte lead Sotheby’s stolid Modern art sales in New York

The firm’s Modern art evening sale and single-owner Mo Ostin auction brought in a below-estimate hammer total of $363.9m, or $427m with fees

Christie’s kicks off New York’s spring auctions with record-breaking Rousseau

The auction house’s bottom line benefitted from the strong performance of works from the collections of S.I. Newhouse and Paul G. Allen

Christie's 20th and 21st century evening sales in London represent a 32% decrease from 2022

Two-part sale spanning Impressionism to the ultra-contemporary had few headline lots—but Brexit is not to blame, auction house specialists maintain

Auction of longtime Vogue editor André Leon Talley’s collection exceeds expectations at Christie's

The white-glove sale brought in nearly $1.4m (with fees) across 64 lots, including rare portraits and works by Andy Warhol

Princess Diana gown, Lebron James jersey and ornate Bronze Age disc lead Sotheby’s latest cross-category auction experiment

The auction house’s first “The One” sale in New York included a mix of ancient artefacts and modern memorabilia organised into thematic sections

Restituted, record-setting Bronzino and gruesome Rubens lead Sotheby’s Old Masters sales in New York

The auction house’s four-part auction extravaganza was a decidedly mixed bag, bringing a total of $74.5m across 124 lots

Record-breaking Goya portraits lead the way at Christie’s muted $62.7m Old Masters auctions in New York

Despite works the collection of film producer Jacqui Eli Safra that were enticingly offered with no reserves, the auction house’s two marquee sales fell short of expectations

Modigliani and Basquiat push Christie’s New York double-header sales of 20th and 21st century art to $421.9m

The epic evening saw strong results from a wide-ranging, two-part offering that spanned the 1880s to this year

Records for rising stars and women artists power an otherwise subdued Sotheby’s New York contemporary art evening sale

The firm’s contemporary and “The Now” evening auctions totalled a combined $314.9m and notched new best prices for Barbara Kruger, Betye Saar and Elizabeth Peyton

Phillips’s $138.7m contemporary art sale in New York reflects ‘a general cautiousness in the market’

The measured result, which slightly surpassed its low estimate and the total take from the same sale last year, was bolstered by a late Cy Twombly that fetched $41.6m