Julien Nguyen and Caroline Walker Spark Bidding Wars at Sotheby’s

Julien Nguyen b. 1990, United States Follow +

Iconic artworks changed hands in last week’s auctions at Sotheby’s London.

Bridget Riley‘s Summer Shades (1994) sold for £1.1m (US $1.2m), Cindy Sherman‘s Untitled Film Still (1980) for £441,000 ($495,000), and Andres Serrano‘s Piss Christ (1987) for £163,800 ($184,000).

The lot that generated the most bids, however, was a painting by Los Angeles-based Vietnamese American artist Julien Nguyen.

Nguyen’s painting Semper Solus (2007) received 14 bids, one more than Indoor Outdoor (2015) by Scottish-born painter Caroline Walker.

The Nguyen hammered for £453,600 ($503,723), more than ten times the low estimate of £40,000, while the Walker sold for £529,200 ($587,677), obliterating the low estimate of £60,000.

Born in 1990, Ngyuen played a lot of video games growing up. In a 2021 interview with The New York Times he said his aesthetic was informed by video games like Civilization III, Age of Empires, and StarCraft. With regards to technique, he takes inspiration from early Renaissance painters such as Raphael.

Inspired by a trip to Palm Springs, Walker’s Indoor Outdoor, pictured top, typifies her practice of documenting women in private moments. Walker works from photos, an approach that lends to the vivid contrast between the cool blue light outside and the warm yellow glow within.

Both paintings were part of Sotheby’s The Now Evening Auction on Friday 14 October.

On the same night, Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening sale saw less heated bidding but much higher prices. The top lot was the Francis Bacon triptych Three Studies for Portrait of Henrietta Moraes (1963), which sold for £24.3m ($27m), followed by Gerhard Richter‘s first abstract work 192 Farben (1966) for £18.3m ($20.5m).

Other notable sales included Kiki Kogelnik‘s Siempre Por Tio (1964) for £207,900 ($230,873), Flora Yukhnovich‘s Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner (2018) for £1.6m ($1.8m), Frank Auerbach‘s Head of J.Y.M. (1984-85) for £5.6m ($6.3m).

At Christie’s 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 13 October, the most lucrative lots were David Hockney‘s Early Morning, Sainte-Maxime (1968–69) for £20.9 million ($23.5m), almost triple the low estimate of £7m ($7.9m) and Gerhard Richter’s Study for Clouds (Green-blue) (1971) for £11.2 million ($12.6m).

Another Caroline Walker painting, Catered (2017), sold for £239,400 ($269,000), more than double the low estimate. —[O]

Main image: Caroline Walker, Indoor Outdoor (2015). Oil on linen. 200 by 160 cm. Courtesy Sotheby's.