The 3 major auction houses brought in over $700 million during the week of Contemporary Art sales.  Works by Warhol were the top seller’s in each of the 3 major auctions.  As Kelly Crow eloquently put it: “Andy Warhol was the week's unrivaled star. His Pop silkscreens from 1963-64 garnered the top prices at each of the three houses, with Christie's getting $38.4 million for his "Self-Portrait"; Phillips $27 million for "Liz No. 5"; and Sotheby's $20.2 million for "Sixteen Jackies." 

Sotheby’s evening sale offered 58 works, 9 failed to sell and the total sale for the evening, $128.1 million, just over the $120 million low estimate. Andy Warhol’s “Sixteen Jackies” was the top lot of the night, but it barely squeezed by its $20 million low estimate at $20.2 million with fees with only two bidders. Another Warhol, “Shadow (Red)”, whose estimate of $700,000 to $900,000 seemed low in comparison to all of the other Warhol’s of the week, sold well above the estimate for $4.8M.

The Wednesday evening sale at Christie’s was quite different, with only 3 of 65 works failing to sell, and an evening total of $301.6M, exceeding the high end of the estimate of $299M for the night. The highlight of the evening was the bidding war that broke out between Brett Gorvy, one of the heads of Christie’s post-war and contemporary department, and Philippe Ségalot over

Andy Warhol’s 1963-64 self-portrait. Both bidding on behalf of private clients, the bids were unconventional and lengthy, but ultimately Mr. Gorvy won the piece for his client at $38.4M. Rothko’s “Untitled No. 17” sold for $33.6M, above its $22M high estimate, despite questions of authenticity as the work is absent from the artist’s catalogue raisonné and other publications. Works by Francis Bacon and Cy Twombly met their estimates, while Anselm Kiefer, a recent strong seller, sold at $3.4M, above its $3M high estimate.

While previous contemporary auctions have highlighted collectors' desire for large and colorful works, abstract expressionist works dominated the contemporary sales, with high prices being paid for Kline, Rothko, and de Kooning.  Finally, collectors are becoming more discerning and large, meritless works are not achieving the phenomenal estimates put on them.  See the Koons "Pink Panther" sculpture or the Urs Fischer teddy bear sculpture complete with auction book.

Hardly a masterpiece was to be found, but that did not stop the auction houses from proclaiming that many works were.  It was the Picasso show during Sotheby’s evening sale on Tuesday, May 3, 2011. In fact, one in six lots for the sale was a Picasso and out of the ten Picassos, eight found buyers.  The star lot, a 1934 colorful Picasso entitled “Femmes Lisant (Deux Personnages)” was bought for $19M (excluding commissions) despite a $25M-$35M estimate.  The grand total for the evening was just north of $170M, despite a pre-sale estimate of $160M-$230M for 59 lots (of which 44 sold).  The big star of the night was the Delvaux.  His “Les Cariatides” brought in $9M from Gagosian Gallery, almost doubling the $5M high estimate.  A poorly done Degas ballerina pastel also failed to sale.  It seemed disjointed with centered ballerinas and what appeared to be landscaping on the right.

Christie’s auction of 57 lots brought in $156M, which was below the low presale estimate of $162M.  The top lot was a Monet landscape simply titled “Poplars” which brought in $22.4M but the credit on this work goes to auctioneer Christopher Burge who really brought these bids out.  With a lesser skilled auctioneer this lot might have bought in.  Burge also showed his expertise when he was able to get $7.1M for a small Picasso cut-out steel sculpture entitled “Man with Sheep.” The work measured under two feet but somehow sold for above its $6M high estimate. At least the journalists were consistent and all remarked on the fact that the auction fell short of the estimates.  All things considered, buyers were more discerning but the top three lots still got over $20M each.  The disappointment of the night was the De Chirico.  Just when it seemed that surrealism was hot, with strong prices being brought by Dali and Delvaux, “Ettore e Andromaca” by De Chirico, painted in 1923 went down for $4.2M plus commissions despite a $5M low estimate.

With just 42 lots, the Allan Stone collection still achieved rather impressive results.  A total of $54.8 M with 36 lots selling. Each of the 7 passed lots failed to elicit a bid; any bid on those lots would have taken the work.  The sale was broken into two parts: the first part of mostly abstract expressionist works and modernism had some strong pieces (like the Calder mobile), but was mostly full of second rate paintings by first rate painters and elicited very little excitement.  The Chamberlains sculptures all brought large sums, but after a cute article in the New York Times and the just opened Gagosian show, everyone knew Larry and his collectors would be there to bid and bid they did, including setting a record price for the artist when “Nutcracker” sold for $4.8M.

The second part of the sale was all Wayne Thiebaud paintings and they did not disappoint. A small tightly painted, appropriately titled “Four Pinball Machines (Study)” commanded a bidding war with the winner paying $3M plus commissions. Yes that was over 4 times the low estimate for a small study measuring under 12 inches by 12 inches.