Apart from the Bacon, Head of Helen Gillespie, 1963–64, by Bacon’s fellow School of London artist Frank Auerbach (estimate: £500,000/700,000), raced to a record £1.9 million ($3.8 million), while one of Bridget Riley’s first works in color, Ch(plucked from the Hoh Collection of mostly Impressionist art consigned to Christie’s ), sold to a U.S. The other Postwar works to make a mark in the sale were British. Meier also collected a slashed red Concetto Spaziale, Attese, 1965–66, by Lucio Fontana from the Lauffs collection (estimate: £800,000/1.2 million) for £1.9 million ($3.8 million). But that Zurich buyer was outbid for Manzoni’s cotton-wool squares, Achrome, 1960 (estimate: £500,000/700,000), which was won by dealer Anthony Meier for £1.9 million ($3.8 million). Another buyer, a European collector bidding through a Sotheby’s Paris expert, paid £3.2 million ($6.3 million) for Klein’s rose-colored sponge, RE3, 1960 (estimate: £1.5 million/2 million).Īlso buying from the Lauffs collection was a Zurich collector, who acquired Klein’s (estimate: £600,000/800,000), for £2.3 million ($4.6 million) and outbid dealer Ivan Wirth to buy Manzoni’s sewn canvas Achrome, 1960, for £517,250 ($1 million) on an estimate of £300,000/400,000. One anonymous telephone bidder paid £4.2 million ($8.3 million) for Klein’s body painting ANT 131, 1961 (estimate: £700,000/900,000). 7, 1959, sold for £1 million ($2 million) on an estimate of £150,000/200,000 French Pop artist Martial Raysse, whose mixed-media collage Snack, 1964, sold for £1.2 million ($2.3 million) on an estimate of £600,000/800,000 and Italian artist Domenico Gnoli, whose Pocket, 1968, sold for £769,250 ($1.5 million) to a phone bidder against Daniella Luxembourg in the room (estimate: £300,000/400,000).Īs in New York, works by Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni from the Lauffs collection soared over estimates. Following the success of the first consignment of works from this collection in New York in May (ANL, 5/27/08), record prices were achieved for Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, whose Métamatic No. One of the biggest consigments in the sale was a group of 12 European Postwar works from the Helga and Walter Lauffs collection, which realized £19 million ($37 million) against a presale estimate of £6.5 million/8.9 million. Also among the top prices were the £5.1 million ($10 million) paid by a European collector for Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (Pecho/Oreja), 1982–83, from the collection of Irish rock band U2 (estimate: £4 million/6 million), and the record £4.2 million ($8.5 million) paid by fashion designer Valentino, bidding against Alberto Mugrabi, for Richard Prince’s Overseas Nurse, 2002, from the collection of British collector Frank Cohen (estimate: £4 million/6 million). Fifty-four of the 71 lots that sold did so at hammer prices either within or above estimates.įrancis Bacon’s small Study for Head of George Dyer, 1967, from the collection of longtime Bacon collector Mercedes Stoutzker, raced past its £8 million unpublished estimate to sell for £13.8 million ($27.4 million) to an anonymous phone bidder against Asian competition in the room.
![achroma red angel achroma red angel](https://tcgplayer-cdn.tcgplayer.com/product/93557_200w.jpg)
The sale’s success was due to the consistently high quality of both the Postwar and the contemporary work that filled the sale. The unsold rate of just 5 percent, or 4 out of the 75 lots offered, was also the lowest of the week, showing remarkable consistency with last June, before the economic downturn, when it was just 8 percent. At Sotheby’s evening sale on July 1, the house realized a total of £94.7 million ($189 million), the highest on record for a contemporary sale in Europe, and the only sale of the week to approach its presale high estimate (£67 million/96 million). LONDON-The Postwar and contemporary sales concluded on a high note.