Phillips mid-season sale in New York had a sufficient number of works that popped—including 8 artists’ records, including Michael Heizer and Matt Connors—to make $2.8m and sell 74% of the 202 lots offered. The sale also featured a work that had been bought for $100k two years ago and was now being disposed of by the dealer who had acquired it.

The publicity around the lot could not have helped its chances but the work by Hugh Scott-Douglas soldiered through and made a face-saving $30,000. It will be interesting to learn—if we ever do—whether the buyer was a collector eager to see the work return to an affordable level or someone more involved in defending Scott-Douglas’s market.