Doig’s painting netted $19 million at Christie’s evening sale, for a total value of $142.9 million.
When Peter Doig’s 1994 painting was auctioned ski jacket After a protracted bidding war, the auction room at Christie’s in London erupted in applause on Wednesday night at the 14 million pound ($19 million) result. The figure may be a far cry from Doig’s auction record of $40 million, but the painting has surpassed its pre-sale price of £6 million to £8 million and appears to be a bright spot in an uneven market.
The sale of the Doig painting by Canadian collector François Odermatt in the saleroom was not the only highlight of Christie’s London 20th/21st Century Evening Sale. The auction had a total of 61 lots, with a total turnover of US$142.9 million, which is the highest October auction total during Frieze Art Week since 2018. In fact, that’s a 33% increase over last year’s equivalent sale (approximately $107 million for 52 lots). It is worth mentioning that the 2024 auction volume itself is up 83% from 2023, partly due to Christie’s abandoning another major London auction season in June of that year. This year’s sales closing rate reached 90%, a significant increase from last year’s 82%. (Unless otherwise stated, all prices are in U.S. dollars and include buyer’s premium.)
Former Christie’s auctioneer Jussi Pylkann tells us art news After the London auction, the company said the result was “the clearest sign that the auction market has returned to normal as the New York sale approaches.” Piercanin added: “The high-end private market has been very healthy and this confidence is now filtering through to the lower value quality works appearing at auction.”
The biggest winner of the night was probably Paula Rego, with her 1995 triptych Walt Disney’s Dancing Ostrich fantasia– the artist’s largest ever auction result – broke her record with a price of £3.4 million ($4.6 million). Her previous record was a diptych from the same series sold in October 2023, worth $3.74 million. Suzanne Valadon, living artists Annie Morris and Esben Weile Kjær also set records.
Although a fart machine in the back of the room made noise during Doig’s bidding – a prank that drew some laughter from the audience – the auction went off without a hitch. A second batch of works—Rene Magritte’s paintings from 1947—comes to life singing (blood will tell you). A number of telephone bidders competed with live bidders, pushing the auction result to 762,000 pounds ($1.02 million), well above the pre-sale price of 350,000 pounds to 550,000 pounds. This isn’t the first time the painting has exceeded expectations: a Christie’s consignor bought it for £163,250 at a Sotheby’s sale in 2010, when it had been estimated at just £25,000-35,000. It turned out to be a pretty good investment.
Two of the three early paintings by Lucian Freud offered for sale—all stored for decades in the same undisclosed private collection, and both carrying Christie’s pre-sale guarantees—sold easily within their estimates. woman and tulips (1944) sold for $4.29 million, sleeping head (1961-71) sold for $3.22 million. The catalog has many covers; Self-portrait clip (circa 1956), sold for just under estimate of $10.2 million.
Two results in quick succession at the end of the auction highlighted how tastes have changed over the past decade or so. Mark Grotjahn 2011 Face Painting Untitled (shedding and shedding of red and T-face 43.22) With little interest, the land was eventually sold for $2.15 million. The same goes for an untitled 2015 painting by Joe Bradley, which sold for $289,000, below the low estimate. Both works come from the collection of the British photographer and art patron Hugo Rittson-Thomas, who founded the Silvie Fleming Collection (named after his mother) and acquired them as they were completed. Both markets have since softened. Bradley’s auction record was set in 2015, when a 2011 painting sold for $3 million at Christie’s. In 2017, a similar-sized painting of Grotejan’s face sold for $7 million, and that same year, Christie’s set an auction record of $17 million.
Only one lot – Nicholas Patty’s trunk (2015), also part of the Fleming Collection, was estimated at £800,000-£1.2 million but has been withdrawn.
Five artworks failed to sell, including a large 1998 painting by Yoshitomo Nara hazy daywith a pre-sale estimate of £6.5 million to £8.5 million ($8.7 million to $11.4 million). Its price stalled at £4.7m, with auctioneer Adrien Meyer giving Eric Chang of Christie’s Hong Kong plenty of time to communicate with his phone bidders – repeating the phrase “last chance” before finally admitting the work had been bought.
Still, the sale was overall a success, especially by today’s somewhat bleak standards. The last words were spoken by consultant and newsletter publisher Josh Baer, who stood among the media reporting on the sale. “The market is not dead yet,” he observed.
