The Modern and Contemporary sale by Sotheby’s in London proved to be a success, bringing £62.5 million ($78.6 million) in sales.
The mid-season sale was held on Tuesday evening to a packed but nervous audience. After a remarkably bad year for the art market, collectors and auctioneers alike had been waiting for the situation to improve. Christie’s mid-season sale held last week was an average performer, doing only marginally better than last year. However, Sotheby’s seems to have given the silver lining the art market had been waiting for.
During the sale, 38 lots hit the auction block. Three others were withdrawn ahead of the sale. With only 4 unsold works, the evening had an impressive sellthrough rate of almost 90 percent. The 34 sold works generated a revenue of £62.5 million, only slightly lower than its pre-sale high estimate of £66.6 million. Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake) (2005) by Yoshimoto Nara was one of the headliners of the night, and it did not disappoint. It ended up being sold for £9 million (above its high estimate of £8 million) – becoming the highest-selling work of the evening.
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Another headliner was Lisa Brice’s After Embah (2018) which fetched £5.4 million – far above its £1.5 million estimate and a personal record for the artist. Big names were not far behind. Andy Warhol’s Camouflage (1986-87) sold for £2.5 million. Picasso’s Buste de femme (1953) sold for £4.2 million – quite lower than its high estimate of £6 million. After a dismal 2024 – which involved laying off 50 employees at the London branch – the evening sale’s success should be a relief for Sotheby’s.
