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Saatchi in Hot Pursuit

October 20, 2009 by Marion Maneker

Hurvin Anderson, Beach SceneMany observers complained about the size of the Frieze sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. The value was down by 80%, they said. The art market must be a wasteland. But Colin Gleadell shows how the price point hardly diminishes the ferocity when a collector is in passionate pursuit of a picture. This Hurvin Anderson beach scene is just one example. Gleadell offers the details on others below (all bullet points are direct quotes from Gleadell):

  • A shoot-out between Charles Saatchi and Monsoon fashion chain owner, Peter Simon, brought back memories of the contemporary art boom at Sotheby’s on Friday. The battle was over a large, 2003 painting of bathers on a tourist beach in Trinidad by British artist, Hurvin Anderson, whose work rarely surfaces at auction. […] Nowadays his gallery prices are nearer £30,000 for a big, new painting. Saatchi has managed to buy two examples at the more recent shows, but the Sotheby’s sale last week was the first chance he had to claim a work from that first exhibition. Estimated at £20,000 to £30,000 the ’Untitled (Beach Scene)’ was subject to a three way bidding war between Saatchi, Simon and the Gagosian Gallery before it finally fell to Saatchi for a record £97,250.
  • ’Afro Apparitions’, a gorgeously hot romantic painting by Chris Ofili, complete with zillions of iridescent dots and elephant dung, soared over estimate to sell for £577,250. The buyers were the well known Iranian collectors, Eskander and Fatima Maleki.
  • More fortunate was the collector Carlos de la Cruz from Miami who bought a painting of flocked wallpaper by New York based artist, Rudolf Stingel for £289,250. This painting had been vastly overestimated last year when it was offered for £500,000 and not sold.
  • The buyer, who was bidding through Christie’s director of Russia, Matthew Stephenson, also paid record prices for works by the Chinese artist, Li Songsong, from the Saatchi collection ($433,250), and by the German artist, Neo Rauch ($892,250).

Contemporary Art Auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s : Reliving Boom Times (Telegraph)

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Filed Under: Auction Results Tagged With: Featured

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