London’s June Sales 2023: Klimt Record Masks Market Cracks

Sotheby’s generated some great results in London, but Christie’s sales suggested the market may be cooling as the weather heats up.

Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction on 27 June made headlines with the sale of Gustav Klimt’s Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan). Its estimate, thought to be in the region of £65 million (US $82,691,050), was passed almost immediately. The work hammered at £74 million ($108.8 million) before buyer’s premium—a record price at auction in Europe.

The Klimt made up a good chunk of Sotheby’s takings for the evening, which totalled £199 million across the Modern and Contemporary Auction and the Now Evening Auction. That’s up a third on similar sales in June last year, and a reassuring result following some lacklustre results in New York last month.

Among the highlights of the Now Evening Auction was Mark Bradford‘s Stand down soldier... hammering at £3.1 million (US $3.9 million). Bought by the previous owner in 2018 from Hauser & Wirth‘s inaugural Hong Kong show, the work is an outstanding example of how Bradford fuses painterly gestures with three-dimensional found objects.

Emerging artists saw similar success at the Modern and Contemporary Auction with Adrian Ghenie Untitled (2019) hammering at £1,253,624 (USD $1,594,823), while Caroline Walker‘s Red Sky Morning (2013) soared past its high estimate of £300,000 (USD $381,651), selling for £457,200 (USD $581,636).

At Christie’s 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale, some impressive results were achieved by a handful of younger artists, but overall sales were down. The auction brought in £51.7 million ($65 million), well below its low expectation of £55 million ($69.8 million).

For comparison, Christie’s modern and contemporary sales in June 2022 totalled £153 million (£181 million with fees), which fell within the estimate range of £133.2–£195.5 million.

American visual artist Louis Fratino, set a new personal record at auction for his oil on panel Listening to a conch (2017) which sold for £201,600 (US $254,276), almost triple the high estimate.

He was joined by the Romanian painter Victor Man who saw his oil on canvas Weltinnenraum (World Within) (2017) realise a staggering £1.7 million (US $1.8 million). Although a considerably larger work, this result dwarfs his past auction record of £214,200 (US $285,000) for D with Raven (2015) that sold at Christie’s in London in March 2022.

And Timothy Taylor’s latest young recruit, Sahara Longe, made her auction debut at Christie’s seeing Self Portrait (2021) sell for £113,400 (US $144,432).

Yet some of the usual high flyers met with less success. Gerhard Richter’s Grünes Feld (Green Field) (1969) with an estimate of £4–6 million (US $5–7.4 million) failed to find a buyer, while nearly a quarter of lots, including Louise Bourgeois, Nature Study (2007), Howard Hodgkin, The Spectator (1984-7) and Elizabeth Peyton‘s David (1988-89) sold below estimate.

When paddles were raised, results remained flat with many lots selling firmly within, or at the lower ends, of their estimates.

Of those, Lucian Freud‘s A Man (Self Portrait) (1944) hammered at £1.7 million (US $2.2 million) with an estimate of £1.5–2 million (US $1.9–2.5 million), while Agnes Martin‘s small Untitled (2003) realised £277,200 (US $289,373), only just crossed its low estimate of £250,000 (US $320,000).

Main image: Josef Albers, Study for Homage to the Square (1972). Oil on masonite. 61 x 61cm. © Christie's Images Limited 2023.