Jean Michel Basquiat’s Warrior made £5,585,250 and was the top lot at Sotheby’s evening contemporary art sale in London. (Click on image to enlarge)
BASQUIAT’S Warrior topped Sotheby’s evening sale of contemporary art in London on June 26. It made £5,585,250 in a sale which realised £69.3 million. Glenn Brown’s The tragic conversion of Salvador Dali made £5,193,250, a record for the artist at auction. Bacon’s 1980 Study for Self-portrait sold for £4,521,250 and Gerhard Richter’s Jerusalem made £4,241,250. In all 21 works sold for over one million pounds in a sale with sell through rates of 87.3 per cent by lot and 93.4 per cent by value. Sotheby’s Summer Season of Contemporary Art Sales in London has brought in a total of £110.7 million.
Commenting on the sale, Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s Chairman of Contemporary Art Europe, said: “The results achieved for our Summer Sales of Contemporary Art in London bring Sotheby’s 2012 global total for sales of Contemporary Art to a staggering $638.2 million. The auction this evening was led by blue-chip artists, such as Bacon, Basquiat, Richter and Lichtenstein, and also witnessed a record price for Glenn Brown, whose oil on canvas established the second-highest price tonight. With buyers from 15 different countries, the global demand for this area of the market continues to be underlined.”
A total of 8% of works were bought by clients new to Sotheby’s. Bidders from 15 countries participated. A total of 21 works sold for over £1 million, and 26 for over $1 million; eight works sold for over $4 million and four for more than £4 million.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for June 14 and June 10, 2012).