Brits Reign Supreme at London’s March Auctions

The ultra-contemporary smash hits and speculative bidding of the early 2020s market are definitively over—at least, if this spring’s London auctions are anything to go by. As we head into the second half of the decade, British salerooms are setting a far more sensible tone, albeit with a bit less fanfare.

That being said, drama was not entirely missing from Christie’s on Thursday night. As the evening kicked off, and executives unveiled a new, sustainable oak rostrum to commemorate the auction house’s 260th anniversary, a display turned the saleroom into a cinema. A brief film played—dramatising the house’s history and the rostrum redesign by Apple alum Sir Jony Ive—interspersed with period clips so Bridgerton-esque, one could almost miss their AI-like appearance.

The whole hullabaloo sucked out any momentum for the opening series of Lucian Freud works, with bidding on a charcoal portrait of Bella Freud briefly interrupted by a replay of the film’s suspenseful music. Bella (1983) hammered for £350,000, within estimate—a decent result considering the vast number of works that sold for below their marks throughout the week.

Christie’s breaks Moore record

Fortunately, the auction soon hit a high note, with Christie’s achieving the week’s top sale: an edition of Henry Moore’s King and Queen (1952 – 53)—the only version still in private hands. Estimated at £10 – 15 million, the bronze sculpture’s price tag shot up to £22.5 million following a five-way bidding war. The sum totalled £26.3 million with fees, just beating the British sculptor’s previous record of £24.7 million, set by Christie’s a decade prior.

Auctioneers Adrien Meyer and Yü-Ge Wang positively zipped through the sale, pausing for a bidding war over an iron Eduardo Chillida sculpture that hammered for more than double its high estimate at £2.7 million. British painter Rose Wylie’s Tube Girl (2016) saw some competition from one of the few online bidders this week—another sign that the Covid-19 hangover is solidly behind us—but ultimately went to a phone bidder for £120,000 before fees, well above its £50,000 – 70,000 estimate.

Perhaps the auctioneers were keen to get to the subsequent Art of the Surreal sale, which saw a 100 percent sell-through rate, and records for female Surrealists Dorothea Tanning and Toyen. The evening concluded with a single owner sale, boasting the highest price achieved for a Tracey Emin work this week: A certain degree of anger (2016) selling for £1.2 million including fees.

London painters prove popular at Phillips

The Young British Artist’s visceral paintings were conspicuously present across the London auctions following her Tate Modern opening last week, including at Phillips’ auction earlier that same day. The sale began with a work by London-based painter Joseph Yaeger, one of the week’s only lots by an ultra-contemporary artist. Tyranny of the rational (2023) jumped to £105,000 before fees from its £35,000 – 55,000 estimate, an “outstanding” result according to The Fine Art Group’s Joanna Hattab, who represented the seller. “Our client is thrilled,” she told Ocula.

Another strong showing for Londoners included Rebecca Warren’s bronze Fascia V (2012), which hammered at £420,000, comfortably above its £350,000 high estimate. However, these two lots, along with works by Pierre Alechinsky and Danish painter Anna Ancher, were the only other pieces that convincingly beat their high estimate.

Star (and guaranteed) lot, Interior of Woman Placing Branches in Vase on Table (1900) by Vilhelm Hammershøi, hammered at £1.3 million—its starting bid and below estimate. After the following Hammershøi failed to sell, auctioneer Henry Highley whizzed through the rest of the auction, which clocked in at a brief 40 minutes.

Sotheby’s has the buzz

The strongest energy of the season was found at Sotheby’s on Wednesday night. As the auction got under way, the saleroom was densely packed, with ticketholders checking anxiously for their allocated seats. This, combined with a heaving, standing-room-only area at the back of the space, left this mildly claustrophobic reporter scanning for fire exits between the suited attendees. 

 The buzz in the room undoubtedly peaked with Leon Kossoff’s Children’s Swimming Pool, 11 o’clock Saturday Morning, August (1969), the first of a group of School of London paintings from former Tottenham Hotspur owner Joe Lewis’s collection. The energetic work, assisted by auctioneer Oliver Barker’s swimming puns—“let’s make a splash!”—garnered a spirited five minutes of bidding both in the room and on the phones. The Kossoff ultimately went to a bidder via Alex Branzik (chairman and head of modern and contemporary art, Europe) for £5.2 million with fees, which the auction house’s London contemporary art head Ottilie Windsor called “incredible” and “unprecedented” at nearly four times the previous record.

Following multi-million-pound results for the rest of the group, including a £16 million (with fees) 1972 Francis Bacon self-portrait, the remainder of the sale was successful, but relatively underwhelming. Nearly one-third of the lots hammered for below estimate, including a Jean-Michel Basquiat (Thin in the Old, 1986) which was later reopened due to a “clerical error”, only to hammer for even less on its second run. Another work, Concetto spaziale, Teatrino (964 - 65) by Lucio Fontana, originally passed at £280,000, but was later inexplicably reopened and hammered for £260,000, after which Barker was presented with the coveted white gloves for a fully sold sale.

What’s next?

So, after a week of bursting salerooms—against a backdrop of increasing international uncertainty—what does London’s art world have to look forward to this spring? For my money, given the success of the capital’s hometown heroes in an otherwise uneventful season, the upcoming Modern British auctions look set to deliver a dramatic second act.