Global Supply & Demand at London Sales
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LONDON— Though London’s October auctions of contemporary art were once minor affairs, these fall sales — which begin Friday at Sotheby’s — are now significant bellwether events. Both houses are expected to gross more than $100 million. “October used to be a small season but now, with the Frieze Art Fair bringing the international community to London, this has all changed,” Christie’s London director of contemporary art, Pilar Ordovas, said.
Among the artists who will generate frenzied bidding is Francis Bacon (1909–92). Christie’s estimates that his “Study From the Human Body, Man Turning On the Light” (1969) will go for between $15 million and $18 million. The oil-on-acrylic has never been sold before; Bacon had donated the painting to London’s Royal College of Art.
Sotheby’s Bacon is the artist’s final diptych: a two-part study in reds and browns of his close female friend and favorite muse, Isabel Rawsthorne, estimated at between $2.97 million and $3.96 million. Traced in earthy browns and reds, the heads, with their high cheekbones and downcast eyes, loom godlike against the sheer orange backdrop.
Also bringing in top dollar will be the work of Chinese contemporary artists, according to the director of Sotheby’s London contemporary art department Francis Outred. “Chinese contemporary art is the forefront of the avant-garde,” Mr. Outred said.
Buyers are responding to the genre’s political potency. Evidence of the astonishing growth in this sector is March’s sale of contemporary Chinese art in New York, which grossed $38 million, rather than the estimated $18 million. It was the first time the house had seen buyers from China put in extravagant Russian-style bids.
Today, Sotheby’s will auction a masterful painting by the star of China’s emergence, Yue Minjun. “Execution” (1995), estimated at between $2.97 million and $3.96 million. In it, four maniacally giggling, near-naked men face a firing squad in front of the red wall of the Imperial Palace in Tiananmen Square.
Another standout work from China is “Nine Cars” by Cai Guo-Qiang, a gargantuan drawing made entirely from exploded gunpowder, estimated at between$595,000 and $795,000. The imagery refers to gunpowder and explosions in both China and America.
The sale of Chinese art continues apace at Christie’s on Sunday. An unsettling painting from Zeng Fanzhi’s 1999 “Mask Series,” estimated at between $250 million and $180 million, shows a man on a beach in a world of misleadingly cheerful pop-art yellows, blues, and pinks. He is wearing a simple, close-fitting mask and the eyes behind are bulging, yet disturbingly vacant. Liu Ye’s “The Happy Family,” estimated at between $150,000 and $180,000, is a striking portrait of two identical, androgynous adults and a baby, all with wings. They are seated as families in portraiture of old, very properly, hands folded. The work has aptly been described as “a fairy tale without a narrative.”
India also continues to emerge as a hot spot in the art market. Mr. Outred at Sotheby’s calls “Gardens of Earthly Delight,” by Raquib Shaw of Calcutta, “the talking point of the week.” Estimated at between $795,000 and $1.19 million, it is a three-part expanse of tumbling creatures, after Hieronymus Bosch, the 15th-century Dutch painter. “My earliest memory of Kashmir is that of color — all kinds of flowers, totally uncoordinated,” Mr. Shaw has said. “Being a loner, I used to live in an imaginary world, had invisible friends — most of them gods and goddesses from Hindu mythology.”
Back to Europe and America, among the most sought-after works are Christie’s three 1985 works by Jean Michel Basquiat: “Larry” (estimated at between: $1.6 million and $2 million) portrays art dealer Larry Gagosian; “Untitled” (estimated at between: $4.1 million and $5 million) is an expressionist rendering of the human form, and “The Thinker” (estimated at between $3.5 million and $5 million) is a fetishistic tribal figure in brown. Also for sale is Jeff Koons’s “Vase of Flowers,” estimated at between $3.1 million and $5 million, from the “Made in Heaven” series.
Meanwhile, Sotheby’s will sell Andy Warhol’s 1962 “Coca Cola” — which has an estimate of between $990,000 and $1.39 million — a simple drawing he made after he saw an ad for Coke and the precursor to the Coke paintings. There is also a blue “Jackie” created shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and estimated at between $1.59 million and $2.38 million.
The top names in the British establishment will be on offer, too. Early Hirsts abound. Christie’s has the early spot painting “Allodihydrocortisol” (1992) and “Blue Skies” (2005), both estimated at between $1.1 million and $1.4 million. The artist Banksy, who is a favorite of model Kate Moss, has works in Sotheby’s sale, including “Rude Lord,” an 18th-century style painting of an aristocrat with his middle finger up and an estimate of between $297,000 and $396,000.
Another standout is Peter Doig’s “Concrete Cabin” — estimated at between $1.7 million and $2.4 million — at Christie’s. It is an unsettling painting of an urban apartment block peeking through a tangle of wilderness. Also at Christie’s, the controversial party girl Tracey Emin makes a showing with the pink-on-black neon sign “Very Happy Girl” (1999), estimated at between $81,000 and $120,000.
As Mr. Outred said, “The contemporary art market is responding to masterpieces right now.” And there are plenty to go around.