During the Sotheby's auction in London organized on Tuesday 26 June 2018, almost all the lots were sold for a total of 110.2 million pounds, equal to 125 million euros, the highest result achieved by the London auction house. Excellent result for the auction house which sees its profits increase by 77% compared to last year.
The highest value of the evening was assigned to the last work by Lucian Freud “Portrait on a White Cover” in its auction debut. Estimated between 17 and 20 million pounds the lot sold for 22,5 million British currency. The work portrays a nude by Sophie Lawrence, who worked at Tate Publishing, created by Freud between 2002 and 2003.
“Daytime Astronomy (Grasshopper)” by Peter Doig it was awarded for £7,7 million. The painting has belonged to the same collection since 1999.
Among the British artists up for auction was also David Hockney with his painting Double East Yorkshire sold for £11,3m, tripling the price it had achieved at its last auction in 2013.
After seeing competition from no less than six bidders, The Skin of our Teeth by Cecily Brown in 1999 made £3 million, tripling the pre-sale estimate set at £750-950 thousand. A second work by the artist, Where Are They Now (2013) sold to an Asian buyer for an overvaluation at £946.
The artist's record has been broken twice by Sotheby's in the past twelve months, the most recent of which occurred in New York City last May.
Three different works by were presented during the evening Jean-Michel Basquiat: a 1982 Untitled which, estimated at £1,5-2,5 million, sold for £3,9 million and a second Untitled which sold for over £14 million. The latter work was presented for the first time in 1982 in Los Angeles on the occasion of the exhibition of the Larry Gagosian Gallery and was exhibited only once, in 1998, at the Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition by Tony Shafrazi. Basquiat's triptych ends with "New York New York", which describes an urban landscape of the city painted in 1981 and created for his personal gallery in Modena. On the occasion of the auction, the painting was presented for the first time outside of Italy.
New faces in London with the works of Sam Gilliam, Henry Taylor and Kara Walker. The first is an 84-year-old American artist who has remained on the quiet for the last 50 and is currently the protagonist of a major exhibition at the Basel Kunstmuseum. His work "Forth" was sold for 910 thousand pounds. Taylor sold the 2006 work titled 'C&H' to an Asian buyer for £274. Kara Walker, on the other hand, in her first appearance since 2013, sold her Untitled for 150 thousand pounds, exceeding the value attributed to the work during the preliminary estimate.
Among the debuts that of Ellen Gallagher with Elephant Bones fetched sold for £394, Eric Fischl with his 1989 The Tire Store sold to an Asian collector for £346 and Jennifer Guidi and her Untitled (Red Sand SF, #1E, Yellow Ground) completed in 2016. The author of the The work has only competed in two auctions prior to this one, both in New York City.
Great result for Elizabeth Peyton who with “Sid Vicious Arrested, Chelsea Hotel” saw the sale price rise from £90 to over £1 million.
The only lot left unsold was Keith Haring's Untitled, which remained unbid at £700.
