The Response to Sotheby's London Cont. Evening Sale

Scott Reyburn at Bloomberg throws a little cold water on the good post-sale vibes with this quote:

“The sales are smaller, there’s less top-quality available,” Heinrich zu Hohenlohe, director at the London-based dealers and agents Dickinson, said in an interview. “These auctions have become dry and professional. It’s difficult to get people to bid if there’s no excitement. The selling rates might be good, but the only statistics that matter are turnover and profit.”

Carol Vogel counters with some upbeat dealer noises and follows Damien Hirst’s progress:

Many of the dealers lingering around Sotheby’s after the sale seemed relieved by the evening’s results. “It’s a different-size market now,” said Gerard Fagginato, a London dealer. “But it was healthy.”

The sale also featured two works by Mr. Hirst. Both sold, but neither brought the kind of prices he fetched at his landmark sale here in the fall. “Homage to a Government, the Dwelling Place,” one of his butterfly paintings from 2006, was purchased by a telephone bidder for $1 million. It had been estimated at $820,000 to $1.3 million. And his “Beautiful Exploding Turquoise Nebula Painting (With Money),” a 1998 spin painting that was expected to fetch $410,000 to $574,000, was bought by Mr. Mugrabi for $228,426.

Judd Tully gets the details on buyers:

Nicolas de Staël’s Nature Morte à la Carafe (1953) sold for £870,050 (est. £500–700,000). The work last appeared at auction in May 1970 at Parke-Bernet in New York, a predecessor of Sotheby’s America, where it made $72,000.

Andy Warhol’s prime, silver paint, and silkscreen ink on canvas Mrs. McCarthy and Mrs. Brown (Tunafish Disaster) (1963), which sold to a telephone bidder for £3,737,250 (est. £3.5–4.5 million). It last sold at auction at Sotheby’s London in June 1995 for £290,000. Dealers Larry Gagosian and Alberto Mugrabi, bidding in tandem, were the direct underbidders. The disaster painting was one of three Warhols on offer from Stuttgart’s esteemed Froelich Foundation, identified in the catalogue as “an important European collection.” The canvas famously appropriates a newspaper story about contaminated tuna that killed two suburban Detroit housewives.

Warhol’s 72-by-86 1/4-inch Hammer and Sickle (1976) sold for £2,001,250 (est. £2–3 million), and Diamond Dust Shoes (1980) sold to the tag team of Gagosian and Mugrabi for £634,850 (est. £600–800,000). “The market seems pretty healthy,” said Mugrabi in the midst of the spectator crush to exit the salesroom on New Bond Street, “and the Hammer and Sickle sold for more money than it ever has before.”

Adding to the feeling of a kind of Golden Oldies affair was Alexander Calder’s rare wood, string, rod, and wire standing mobile, A Cinq Morceaux de Bois (1934), which attracted a pack of at least five bidders, finally selling to London dealership Theobald Jennings for £2,617,250 (est. £1.2–1.8 million). Underbidders included Iwan Wirth of London and Zurich’s Hauser & Wirth, as well as the Nahmads. “My client was delighted to get it,” said Simon Theobald, moments after the sale. “It’s a beautiful, rare, and early work, and we were very pleased with the price we paid for it.”

Slim and Conservative, Sotheby’s Sale Proves a Winner (ArtInfo.com)

Warhol Sales Make $10.5 Million as Sotheby’s Turns to Big Names (Bloomberg)

Inside Art:Buyers for Warhol and Calder (New York Times)