Paddles Up: Five Prized Paintings at London’s Spring Sales

As major London auction houses like Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips prepare for this spring’s modern and contemporary marquee sales, Ocula Advisory identifies our must-see works and the lots that could achieve prices with a wider impact on the market.

For the first lots across this year’s evening auctions, faith has been placed in hot artists Danielle McKinney and Royal College of Art graduate Ding Shilun, for whom early bidding will serve as a litmus test for prices at this level.

At the top end of the market, Sotheby’s are offering a 2005 Yoshitomo Nara. Meanwhile, Christie’s is bolstering its 20th and 21st century and Surreal evening sales with impressive works by Francis Bacon and René Magritte, each carrying a top estimate of £9 million.

Looking back at last year, combined sales of the three auction houses reflected a cautious sentiment, totalling approximately £317.7 million—a 15 percent drop from 2023, softened by the sale of a £29 million Magritte at Christie’s. But with strong offerings across the board, we wait to see what next week says for the year.

1. Yoshitomo Nara, Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake) (2005) at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction

Ocula founder Simon Fisher calls this ‘the best Nara to come to auction since Knife Behind Back in 2019’. The 2000 painting set a record for the Nara market at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, selling for 195.7 million HKD (approximately 24.9 million USD).

Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake) features Nara’s signature heroine, radiating depth and pearly luminosity. But unlike his earlier, manga-inspired figures, this 2005 work marks a shift toward more humanised, three-dimensional subjects, while also incorporating his rare cosmic eye motif—a pivotal moment in Nara evolution.

2. Joseph Yaeger, Silent Treatment (2023) at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction

Superstar painter Joseph Yaeger was due to be back in the top spot for Sotheby’s Evening Auction with a striking large-scale work encapsulating the best of his celebrated practice: his penchant for the figure, the uncanny intimacy of his tight cropping, and his mastery of light and shadow. Now withdrawn from sale, Silent Treatment featured in Yaeger’s 2023 solo exhibition of the same title at East London gallery Project Native Informant, underscoring its significance within the artist’s oeuvre.

Gladstone Gallery and Modern Art recently announced their representation of Yaeger, and his Sphinx without a secret (2021), which is significantly smaller than Silent Treatment, sold for over £200,000 at Phillips last October—more than six times its high estimate.

Read Will Hine’s interview with Yaeger in his East London studio here.

3. Bridget Riley, Daphne (1988) at Christie’s 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale

Bridget Riley is a master of manipulating the eye through colour and form. Bold colours and jarring diagonals are softened by fleshy pinks and light blue tones that calm and delight in equal measure. Daphne (1988) is a joyful painting and fresh to the market after decades in a private collection, so a strong price is expected.

The work was last exhibited in Riley’s major survey shows at the Southbank Centre (1989) and Glasgow’s historical McLellan Galleries (1990), and now resurfaces as one of the season’s most exciting lots.

4. Anselm Kiefer, Für Gérard de Nerval (2015–21) at Phillips’ Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale

Over at Phillips, it’s the Kiefer at Lot 10 which commands our attention. A nearly three-metre-tall canvas that, true to form, spares neither scale nor paint, commanding immense physical presence.

Exhibitions-wise, this is a landmark year for Kiefer. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is currently showcasing a 45-piece exhibition of his early works, while Sag mir wo die Blumen sind, a major dual-venue show at the Van Gogh Museum and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, opens in Amsterdam the week of the auctions. Kiefer’s ongoing dialogue with Van Gogh continues in Kiefer/Van Gogh at London’s Royal Academy of Art in June, coinciding with his solo exhibition at White Cube Mason’s Yard. If it’s anything like his Bermondsey show in 2023, it will be extraordinary.

5. Frank Auerbach, From the Studios (1986–87) at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction

Auerbach’s market has been steadily gathering pace for a few years and there is now more of an appreciation for his landscapes—particularly off the back of the expansive show staged by Francis Outred and Offer Waterman at the end of last year.

This is one of my favourite Auerbach paintings I have seen in the flesh. The rawness and vitality of his brushstrokes immediately draws you into the artist’s world—one that was primarily centred around his studio and London. As if to emphasise this, he even cheekily includes a self-portrait in the bottom right corner. But it’s the range of colour, particularly that glorious pink sky, that marks this as particularly special. —[O]

Main image: Frank Auerbach, From the Studios (1986–87) (detail). Oil on canvas. 116.4 x 129.5 cm. Courtesy Sotheby's London.