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Anchored by Records for Amy Sherald, Kehinde Wiley, Phillips $134.6 M. Evening Sale Brings Houses’s Highest Total

December 8, 2020 by Colin Gleadell

David Hockney, Nichols Canyon (1980), detail
Courtesy Phillips.
The analysis of the December 7 Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sales at Phillips is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)

Phillips was aiming to see the year out on a high note this evening with a sale of 35 lots of 20th century and contemporary art that carried a $110 million-$160 million estimate. So far this year, no evening sale of modern and contemporary art at any of Phillips's international branches has made than $50 million (the joint New York Hong Kong sale last week). The highest in New York was $41 million in July. But tonight they surpassed that and hit their estimate with a $134.6 million total– also the highest total for a Phillips contemporary art sale in New York and a 25% increase on the equivalent sale last winter.

This time, they were really gunning for it. 4 works were estimated to bring over $10 million each and 14 lots were guaranteed (13 by third parties) with a combined low estimate of $89.6 million or 81.5% of the total– a high percentage even for Phillips. As chairman, Ed Dolman, has said in the past: “We need to make guarantees to get the works in for sale.”

The top of the list was David Hockney’s 7 foot-by-5-foot 1980 painting Nichols Canyon, a view close to his home in California. Consigned by an anonymous ‘Distinguished American Collector’, this was, in fact Seattle-based real-estate developer Richard Hedreen— the American collector currently better known for buying a Frans Hals from Sotheby’s in a private sale in 2011 for $11.75 million, only to be told that scientific tests suggested that it was a forgery. Sotheby’s reimbursed Hedreen but is still fighting a high-profile legal case with one of the sellers who asserts it is genuine.


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Phillips Partnership with Poly Auction Nets $50 M. Realizing Emerging Artists Records

December 3, 2020 by Colin Gleadell

Phillips Auction
Jonathan Crockett auctioneering top lot, Yoshitomo Nara's Hothouse Doll
Courtesy Phillips Auction.
The analysis of Phillips and Poly Auction's joint 2020 Modern and Contemporary sale on December 3 is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)

Phillips in Hong Kong achieved its highest total for a 20th century and Contemporary art sale today when, in association with Poly auctions, one of mainland China’s biggest auction rooms, it sold 29 lots for HKD 388 million ($50 million) after one lot was withdrawn and two were unsold. The sale had been estimated to fetch in the region of $40 million so could be deemed a great success. (Sale prices include the buyer’s premium, estimates do not).

Phillips is a relative newcomer in Hong Kong and began staging 20th century and Contemporary art sales in November 2016, so are still laying down roots. Like the Hong Kong leg of Christie’s sale yesterday, the early lots were peppered with works by western based artists, Phillips’ strongest suit, who have established a speculative momentum in Asia.


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Toulouse-Lautrec Leads Christie’s $119.3 M. Hong Kong-New York Relay Sale

December 2, 2020 by Colin Gleadell

Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierreuse
Courtesy Christie's

Christie’s presented part two of its pandemic response series of 20th century art sales today– a mix of impressionist, modern and contemporary, Western and Asian art, which realised a reasonable $119.3 million, against an estimate of $94.9 million-$147 million (unless otherwise stated sale prices include the buyers’ premium, estimates do not) with just 5 lots going unsold. Like July's ONE sale, it was live-streamed from Hong Kong from 9:30 pm local time, where the first section of the sale had been organized, and then during the morning in New York for the remainder. Unlike the ONE sale, Paris and London were left to stage their most recent auctions separately.

At the final count, Hong Kong appeared to have had the healthier result with $52.4 million for 19 lots, of which 8 were guaranteed, while, although New York took the larger sum of $66.9 million, it was for 31 lots, of which 14 were guaranteed.

Alex Rotter, Christie's Chairman of the 20th and 21st Century Art department put a shine on the performance following the auction. “This week’s sale series in both Hong Kong and New York are a fitting coda to an innovative and re-imagined fall sale season for 20th and 21st Century Art, which started in early October with a $387.2 million sale series, and continued in London and Paris with $141.3 million more," Rotter said in a statement.


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Sotheby’s October Evening Sale Brings $283.9 M. with Some Profits and a Few Surprising Losses

October 29, 2020 by Colin Gleadell

Sotheby's New York sale room.
Courtesy Sotheby's.

The report on Sotheby's October 28th Live-Stream Evening sale includes details on works that made a profit for their sellers and a number of surprising works that were sold at a loss . It is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)

On top of numerous successful modern and contemporary art sales in Hong Kong, Paris and London since the end of July, Sotheby’s mounted its final putsch before the U.S. election yesterday with two sales from it New York headquarters, hoping to garner as much as $344.3 million without the additional buyer’s premium.

The resulting total $283.9 million including the premium, may have been disappointing, but as we shall see, many estimates were set as if normal conditions prevailed. (Prices include the buyer’s premium, estimates do not)

To achieve that much with a high sell-through rate of 97%, even below estimate, was, as Oliver Barker might have said, an ‘extraordinary’ achievement— his most used adjective of the night to describe the works of art he was selling. But then again, he was acting up for over 1 million viewers.

Launching with a contemporary art sale given an estimate of $128.2 million-$184.2 million for 41 lots, the sale made $142.8 million including buyer’s premium after five lots were withdrawn and two were unsold.

Among the withdrawn lots were a 1957 Clyfford Still with a $12 million-18 million estimate, and a 1987-8 Brice Marden with a $10 million-15 million estimate which were part of the much disputed sell off by the Baltimore Museum of Art and had carried third party guarantees which must have been rescinded.


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Led by Boetti, Christie’s Italian Art Evening Sale Disappoints with $6.9 M. Total

October 26, 2020 by Colin Gleadell

Alighiero Boetti, Celant (1967).
Courtesy Christie's.
The report is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)

After a fairly nail-biting contemporary art evening sale in London last week, Christie’s global president Jussi Pylkkänen handed the auctioneer’s gavel to Arlene Blankers, Christie head of Decorative Arts in London for the house's "Thinking Italian: Modern Italian Art and Design," sale, no doubt conscious of the sea of empty bids that awaited her. Blankers ended up selling only 18 of the 30 lots offered, just 9 of which were within or above the estimate, for £5.3 million ($6.9 million) including premium—one of the lowest totals for an Italian sale in years and far below the £9.7-£14 million ($12.6 million-$18.2 million) pre-sale estimate, without premium.

The modern Italian art sales were a fixture in London’s auction calendar long before the Frieze fair was thought of, the brainchild of dealer, Ben Brown, while he worked in Sotheby’s Contemporary Art department in the 1990s. His sale was so successful, Christie’s followed suit the next year. At their peak in 2015-16 they were generating some £84 million ($109 million) between Sotheby’s and Christie’s in two evenings. A score of specialized Italian art galleries opened in London creating an alternative Italian festival within Frieze week.

But with the export of valued post-war modern art from Italy being restricted and the threat of Brexit to the movement of goods generally, the Italian market in London began to shrink. Sotheby’s stopped holding Italian sales last year, incorporating works within their mixed international modern and contemporary Art sales. This week, it was just Christie’s bravely persevering in pandemic conditions.


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