The action continues to move at a very slow pace, with couple of exceptions (prices shown are hammer) – Soulages Peinture, 21 novembre 1959 made £3.8M (est. £2-£3M) and Gursky’s Chicago Board of Trade III made £1.8 ( est. £600-£800) while his Chicago Board of Trade made £1.3M (hammer – est. £700-£900K). Here is an interesting observation … buyers really wanted the Chicago views since there were also views of Tokyo, Stock Exchange (sold for 520K – est. £500-£700K); Kuwait Stock Exchange II (£550K – est. £400-£600K) and Hong Kong Stock Exchange (£400K – est. £400-£600K).
Lot 23 was a Gerhard Richter which sold for a measly £2M (est. £2.5-£3.5M – it was bought by the seller back in 1994 for $126K). The star lot, by Francis Bacon, just clipped its low estimate when it sold for £10.1M (est. £10-£15M).
There were two Wesselmann pieces that failed to sell. The first was his Still Life #5 1/2 which was bought by the seller in 2008 for $2.26M and carried an estimate of £900-£1.2M (even if it sold, the owner was ready to take a big loss) and his Great American Nude #34 which made $680K in 2003 and this time carried a £3-£4M (this owner was looking for a BIG payday). In addition, two works by Basquiat passed.
Final update to follow …
Gerhard Richter’s ABSTRAKTES BILD