Stories

The works get sold under the heading of Modern British and Irish art but many of the artists have become leading lights of the Modern art market—like Bridget Riley and Barbara Hepworth—while others continue to be highly prized by collectors like L.S. Lowry and David Bomberg.

With the addition of a Surrealism sale, the auction house achieved solid results in a market that is equalizing between buyers and sellers. Yesterday at Christie’s, the total sale was more than $334 million with an average lot value of $3.24 million. The sell-through rate was a very well-managed 93% with 36% of the lots selling above the estimate range.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s A Sunflower from Maggie (1937) will be a highlight of Christie’s 20th Century Art Evening sale this May in New York. The painting comes from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA); it is being deaccessioned to benefit the museum’s future acquisitions.

Following last November’s blow-out sale of works by Vincent van Gogh, $160 million in only four works by the artist were sold in the New York sales, Christie’s has announced a major landscape for the May sales.

The three-part work from the 1982 Fun Gallery show is priced at more than $30 million

One of the painter's last monumental triptychs comes to the block from a Swiss collection. Christie’s announced overnight that it would be selling Francis Bacon’s Triptych 1986-87 estimated at £35,000,000 ($47.3 million).

Painting sold to fund collector’s emigration to New York is offered with £35m estimate in March and hopes for much more. The market for works of German Expressionism is hampered by the limited supply of works in private hands and the relative paucity of trades that might excite both buyers and sellers.

Lucien Freud’s Girl with Closed Eyes, a portrait of Janey Longman painted by Freud in his sixties, will be offered during Christie’s March 1st relay sale connecting sale rooms in Shanghai and London. The work is being offered with its estimate upon request, a strategy that allows the house to gauge demand for the work in real time, but the whisper number places expectations above £10 million for the small canvas.

On March 1st, Christie’s will resume its relay sales with an event linking the firm’s Shanghai headquarters with London selling works in the 20/21 format with the addition of a traditional London sale focused around the Art of Surrealism.

The headline numbers for Christie’s in 2021 were very impressive indeed, but the most interesting metrics for the art market come deeper down in the auction house’s $7.1 billion results. Half way through 2021, it was clear that the art market was going to have a very strong year.

“That was a managed white glove sale,” one of Christie’s specialists said to her colleague as they walked out of the Christie’s hybrid salesroom-livestream studio.