The First Open sale at Christie’s brought in $4,408,750 with 129 of 155 lots sold which makes an 83% sell-through.
Those good numbers won’t cheer the consignor of the Kerry James Marshall or the Ed Ruscha, pictures that were both meant to be highlights of the sale. The Ruscha was bought in at $95,000. If you were the consignor of two Basquiat drawings that were bought two years ago at Sotheby’s for a little more than $30,000 each, you were very quite frustrated because both were bought in at $19k and $22k.
On the other hand, there was much to celebrate if you were selling the Scull edition Warhol Flowers which made over $1m or the Murakami flower or Conrad Marca-Relli’s untitled work or, even, a Friedel Dzubas.