Basquiat, Bacon led contemporary art sales in London

Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
Painted in 1982
Sold for £18,765,875 / $28,974,511 / €22,031,137
at Christie’s

Francis Bacon
Three Studies for Isabel Rawsthorne
Painted in 1966
Sold for £11,282,500 / $17,289,124 / €13,286,943
at Sotheby’s

Basquiat, Bacon led contemporary art sales in London Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francis Bacon were the stars at the contemporary art auctions in London, June 2013. Basquiat’s ‘Untitled’ fetched £18,75 million at Christie’s, and two works by Bacon sold for more than £10 million at Sotheby’s.]]>

June 26, 2013, source: Christie’s / Sotheby’s

Christie’s – June 25, 2013
Sale total: £89,341,713 / $139,981,526/ €104,713,989

The top lot at Christie’s was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Untitled”, which sold for £18,765,875 / $28,974,511 / €22,031,137. The large-scale double portrait from 1982, a pivotal year in the artist’s career, forms part of the series of important double portraits, including “Untitled (Two Heads on Gold)” and “Dustheads” (which set a record price for the artist at auction when it sold at Christie’s New York in May). “Untitled” was sold for just $1,659,500 at Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg New York in November 2002.

“Jetty” (1994), an excellent work by Peter Doig, sold for £7,341,875 / $11,335,855 / €8,619,361 (estimate: £4,000,000 – 6,000,000). Executed on a monumental scale, “Jetty” creates an idealised vision of a landscape, vast and all encompassing. Also, the auction at Christie’s offered the first 8 works from the group of 47 lots which formed the complete “Homage to Chillida” exhibition curated by Kosme de Barañano and held at Guggenheim Bilbao in 2006. The top lot from this section of the sale was Eduardo Chillida’s monumental sculpture “Buscando la Luz IV” (2001). The spectacular 8-metre tall and 17 tons heavy monolith, sold for £4,093,875 / $6,320,943 / €4,806,209.

Sotheby’s – June 26, 2013
Sale total: £75,778,500 /$116,858,025 /€89,343,047

Francis Bacon was the star at Sotheby’s. His “Three Studies for Isabel Rawsthorne” (sold for £11,282,500) and his “Head III” (sold for £10,442,500) were the two most expensive works in the auction. Sotheby’s noted that “Head III” was the first work Francis Bacon ever sold (making £150 in 1949).

Two “Concetto Spaziale” works by Lucio Fontana sold for over £4,3 million each, almost the same price paid for “Peinture, 21 Novembre 1959” by Pierre Soulages -an auction record for the artist. “Double East Yorkshire”, a large and colorful landscape painted by David Hockney in 1998, fetched £3,442,500. It was also an excellent auction for Andreas Gursky, as 5 stock exchange works sell for combined £5.46 million (“Chicago Board of Trade III” sold for £2,154,500), well over their pre-sale expectations.

Related content

Basquiat’s ‘Untitled’ could break record at Christie’s (news, October 2012)
Bacon’s ‘Figure writing reflected in mirror’ at Sotheby’s (news, April 2012)