newsfromsothebys201110

Sotheby's London Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sale auction, on October 13th and 14th, totaled £24,532,950 (US$38,633,427 - including premium). The Contemporary Art Evening Sale totaled £17,809,000 (selling 79,2% by value and 76,6% by lot), from 47 lots offered; whereas the Day Sale totaled £6,732,950 (selling 72% by value and 69% by lot), from 184 lots on sale.

Top lots sold in the Evening Sale included Lucian Freud, Boy's Head that find a buyer willing to pay £3,177,250 (US$4,999,085) (estimate £3,000,000 - 4,000,000). From an important American Collection this oil on canvas (1952, 21.6x15.9cm) depicted Charlie Lumley, one of Freud's most immediately-recognisable subjects from this early period in his oeuvre. The painting broadcasts a quite remarkable psychological intensity that is archetypal of his pictorial analysis, "whereby the young sitter is subjected to the unyielding dissection of his gaze."
Bought for £1,721,250 (US$2,708,215) (with estimate £1,400,000 - 1,800,000), Miquel Barceló, Pluja Contracorrent (mixed media on canvas, 300x200cm), executed in 1991, is an archetypal of the large-scale paintings produced during the seminal early 1990s period. Unequivocally Pluja Contracorrent is the masterwork from this series. Inspired by the expedition on the River Niger, in 1991, "the depths of sensorial experience, art history, and culture past and present, are penetrated and fused into a paragon of breathtaking artistic expression."
For more than eight years in a private collection [Sale: Sotheby's New York, Contemporary Art, 13 May 2004, Lot 371], Jean-Michel Basquiat, Spike (acrylic and oilstick on canvas, 1984, 155x165cm) from 1984 "bears witness to the very year Basquiat reached full artistic maturity", when he was just twenty four yeas old. "With bared teeth and arms outstretched against a vast field of cadmium yellow," this archetypal "figure facing the viewer replete with commanding symbolic authority", went for £1,217,250 (US$1,915,221) (estimate £1,100,000 - 1,600,000) for a Private US collector.
A new record for the artist at auction was achieved by an Leon Kossoff's oil on board. Executed in 1985, A Street in Willesden (213.4x208.3cm), went for £690,850 (US$1,086,983) (estimate £350,000 - 450,000) to a private European collector.

Sotheby's London :
Contemporary Art (Sale L11024 and L11025), Oct. 13 and 14 2011. Auction Result £24,532,950
Contemporary Art (Sale L10024 and L10025), Oct. 15 and 16 2010. Auction Result £22,834,000
Contemporary Art Including Arab & Iranian Art (Sale L09624), Oct. 16 2009. Auction Result £12,757,125
Contemporary Art (Sale L08024 and L08026), Oct. 17 and 20 2008. Auction Result £29,132,050
Contemporary Art (Sale L07024 and L07026), Oct. 12 and 15 2007. Auction Result £51,052,525