Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, Europe was a vanguard of artistic development. Spurred on by periods of opportunity, great landscapes, or the horrors of human conflict, European artists were at the forefront of creative developments that collectors sought decades later. Across the myriad of European artists that originated from this era, Francis Bacon, Tamara de Lempicka, and Amedeo Modigliani were just some to grace the top lots at Christie’s 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale.
Held on the evening of 5 March, the evening sale saw 51 lots put on sale, 44 of which were sold for a sale rate of roughly 86.2% and a sale total of over £82.1 million (around US$105 million).
Among portraits by big-name painters, the lot that stood out in the auction was of simple fish in the sea. The painting, Michael Andrews’ School IV: Barracuda under Skipjack Tuna, not only set the artist's auction record, selling for £6 million (around US$7.81 million), but it also marked the high point of the auction in terms of interest and surpassing its high estimate.
Lot 21 | Michael Andrews (1928-1996) | School IV: Barracuda under Skipjack Tuna, Acrylic on canvas
Painted in 1978
175.5 x 175.5 cm
Provenance:
- Anthony d'Offay and James Kirkman, London
- Acquired from the above by Dr. Catherine Wills in 1979
Estimate: £3,000,000-5,000,000
Hammer Price: £5,000,000
Sold: £6,060,000 (around US$7.81 million)
The auctioneer opened bidding at £2.2 million, with it quickly taking off from there as there was a high amount of interest in this painting. Various bidders, especially those represented by Christie’s specialists on their phones, rapidly drove up the price of the lot.
Eventually there was a tense three-way bidding war between two Christie’s staffers on their phones: Senior International Director of Impressionist and Modern Art, Olivier Camu, and Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Europe, Katherine Arnold, and Chairman, 20/21 Art Departments, Alex Rotter.
At the end it was Rotter’s client who won the bidding war of attrition with a hammer price of £5 million, which after fees will amount to £6,060,000 (around US$7.81 million), and tripling its low estimate. It also set the artist’s auction record, surpassing School III: Butterfly Fish and Damsel Fish (1978), which sold almost exactly a year ago for US$3.98 million, a 95% increase between the two records.
Also, according to Christie's themselves, the humble fish lot saw the "fiercest bidding" of the night as it was a rare chance for collectors to snag one of the School series of paintings by Andrews, considered to be his greatest series of paintings. The outperformance of works by traditional big-name artists signaled to the auction house that collectors are equally interested in paintings with prestigious provenance and stories that can be gravitated to and speak to the artist's intentions and themes.
Alex Rotter (left) and Olivier Camu (right) bidding for the lot
Michael Andrews | School III: Butterfly Fish and Damsel Fish (1978) | Sold by Christie's London for £3.12 million (around US$3.98 million), 2024
Michael Andrews was born in 1928 and underwent an illustrious education in the fine arts across Europe. He studied in London and Rome before becoming an art teacher in the late 1950s, before painting his School series, considered to be his masterpieces.
Andrews was also part of the Norwich Twenty Group, an association of artists from the city of Norfolk, who still exist today and represent an array of art forms. In addition to this, Andrews was part of a loose group of painters including his friends Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud called the School of London that originated in the Postwar era.
Michael Andrews in the summer of 1975
Regarding the School paintings, Andrews stated that “identity and community—and identity in community; that’s my prevailing preoccupation—my prevailing idea.” In each of the different School series paintings, Andrews sought to portray a different state of human community or interaction via his painting of fish. For example, in School II: Pike and Roach (1977), Andrews painted the tense encounter between predator and prey, while in School III: Butterfly Fish and Damsel Fish (1978), Andrews portrays ideas of uniformity but also colorful distinction.
School IV: Barracuda under Skipjack Tuna is considered a masterwork and extremely rare, as it has been held in the same private collection since 1979 and occasionally while touring. In it, Andrews returns to ideas similar to those of School II, as to Andrews, the tuna are peaceful fish while the Barracuda stalk under them with “warlike” intentions. The fish face opposite directions as Andrews uses his skill to weave together the dense background and distinct cutlass-like shape of the Barracuda into his painting.
To produce this work, Andrews would immerse himself in various photos taken of fish and underwater. He referred to short films shot underwater in the 1970s for inspiration, and he was captivated by the way color and motion worked underwater, like camouflage, noise, or even a wave of insects. As such, in this work, Andrews sought to capture more than just fish in their environment, but the balance of society and how individuals navigate it.
Lot 25 | Tamar de Lempicka (1899-1980) | Portrait du Docteur Boucard, Oil on canvas
Painted in 1928
137 x 78 cm
Provenance:
- Dr Pierre Boucard, Paris, by whom commissioned directly from the artist in 1929, and thence by descent
- Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 14 November 1985, lot 278
- Acquired at the above sale, and thence by descent to the present owner
Estimate: £5,000,000-8,000,000
Hammer Price: £5,500,000
Sold: £6,635,000 (around US$8.55 million)
Bidding for this painting began at £3.5 million with bids coming from both Christie’s staff representing their clients on the phone and online, quickly raising the price of the lot to £5 million. Bidding staff included Impressionist & Modern Art Senior Specialist and Co-Head of Evening sale, Michelle McMullan, and European Head of Private Sale, Jay Vince.
At the end it was McMullan who won the lot for her client with the paddle number 812. After fees, they paid a total of £6,635,000 (around US$8.55 million).
Michelle McMullan raising the paddle number 812, the number of her client that won the Lempicka painting
Born in 1899 in Russian-ruled Poland, Lempicka lived in the Russian Empire until leaving for Paris following the First World War and the Russian Revolution. She became an artist on the advice of her sister and would build a lavish career in Paris, becoming one of the most important female artists in the city. However, while her career grew, the specter of war still haunted her, and she would eventually leave Europe for North America, where she would live for the rest of her life.
During her life, Lempicka was considered an Art Deco painter with heavy cubist inspirations. Additionally, she was an avid user of the chiaroscuro effect, where strong light and dark contrasts are used to create volume and dimension in a flat space.
All these principles are seen in this painting of Dr. Pierre Boucard, a key patron of Lempicka while she was in Paris. Dr. Boucard was an important medical figure of the time who studied digestive health and bacteria. He was also a major fan of Lempicka’s work, whom he met in 1927, and would go on to commission several paintings and portraits of himself and his family, including himself, his daughter, and his wife.
The Boucard family portraits by Lempicka are considered one of the pinnacles of Lempicka’s work, with this painting exhibiting Lempicka’s ability to weave together the subject and their social position under her style of painting. The inclusion of scientific tools such as a glass tube and microscope is most indicative of this, with the lab coat being both a tool of science and perhaps a white trench coat, indicating his status and style.
Lot 10 | Francis Bacon (1909-1992) | Portrait of Man with Glasses III, Oil and sand on canvas
Painted in 1963
36 x 30.7 cm
Provenance:
- Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., London
- Marlborough-Gerson Gallery Inc., New York (acquired from the above in 1965)
- Private Collection, U.S.A.
- Thomas Gibson Fine Art, London
- Private Collection, South Africa (acquired from the above in 1972)
- Ivor Braka Collection, London
- Private Collection, UK (acquired from the above circa 1996)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £6,000,000-9,000,000
Hammer Price: £5,500,000
Sold: £6,635,000 (around US$8.55 million)
Bidding for the lot opened up at £4.5 million, and while only three bids were made for it, they were made at extremely large increments of £200,000 and £300,000.
The first bid, placed for a client on the phone by Christie’s Senior Director of Modern British and Irish Art, Philip Harley, raised the bidding price to £4.8 million. The next bidder then brought that up to £5 million. Harley then brought the bidding to an end by bidding a total of £5.5 million and winning the lot for his client with the paddle number 7010.
Philip Harley raising the paddle number of his client who purchased the lot
During the mid-1960s, the focus of enigmatic British painter Francis Bacon’s work shifted to portraits of friends, with all of them being 14 x 12 inches, including this lot.
This painting expertly exhibits Bacon’s skill at using space, color, and texture to construct his idea of the human face. One of the main focuses in how Bacon sought to paint the human face was a focus on the mouth, as he once stated he wanted “to paint the mouth like Monet painted a sunset.” In this work, Bacon twists the mouth of the subject, having it be wide open in some parts, but in others its teeth clenched together.
Regarding his usage of space, Bacon uses the dark space of the background and the eyes of the figure in the portrait contrasted against the bright and almost frantically painted face of the figure. This creates a negative and positive space dichotomy that isn’t just reflected in the background by the actual subject of the portrait itself, helping the portrait as a whole stand out more.
Similarly, there is an almost “liquid” nature of Bacon’s work, as seen with how the portrait almost melts onto the background. Bacon achieved this by using a silver-colored sand on the painting’s background to make it seem like his portraits were melting into it. He sought this because he wanted to contrast his work from that by other artists like Picasso. He found the portraits in those works to be too grounded, and he wanted his to not be able to be pinned down, in a literal sense.
Lot 9 | Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) | Portrait de Lunia Czechowska, Oil on canvas laid on board
Painted circa 1916-1917
46 x 37.8 cm
Provenance:
- Walther Halvorsen, Oslo & Paris, by whom probably acquired from the artist
- Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (no. 22306), by whom acquired from the above on 3 September 1920
- Biassano, by whom acquired from the above on 27 November 1920
- Jos Hessel, Paris, by 1930
- Marcelle Bourdon, Paris, by 1952; her sale, Guy Loudmer, Paris, 25 March 1990, lot 35
- Corporate collection; sale, Briest, Paris, 28 November 1996, lot 33
- Private collection, Europe, by whom acquired at the above sale
- Acquired from the above in 2003, and thence by descent to the present owner
Estimate: £4,000,000-7,000,000
Hammer Price: £5,200,000
Sold: £6,290,000 (around US$8.1 million)
The auctioneer opened bidding for the painting at £2.6 million, with subsequent bids steadily increasing the price by £200,000 each time. Bidders in the room, online, and specialists on the phones with their clients made bids for the work, with over 14 bids being placed in total and a brief bidding war at the very end.
Eventually, Vice-Chairman, 20th-21st Century Department, Giovanna Bertazzoni won the lot for her client on the phone with the paddle number 857 with the hammer price of £5,200,000. After fees, the client will pay a total of £6,290,000 (around US$8.1 million).
Giovanna Bertazzoni raising the paddle number of her client who won the lot
An Italian native, Modigliani was part of the School of Paris, a quasi-movement that included various immigrant artists who explored a variety of styles. While a student of antiquity and the Renaissance, Modigliani was influenced more by movements such as Cubism, Post-Impressionism, and Fauvism, creating a style unique to his work. Those who sat to have their portraits painted by Modigliani could be said to have been “Modiglianized.”
Modigliani prided himself on his ability to evoke the serene beauty in the people he was painting, distilling their nuances and their unique qualities onto his canvas. He also always needed to paint with the person sitting opposite of him, not because he sought to capture their likeness one-for-one, but instead, he wanted to see what qualities he could abstract and paint in his style. This includes the subject of this painting, Lunia Czechowska.
Czechowska was a Pole born in Austria who had come to live in Paris in the early 1900s. He met Modigliani in 1916, and in fact, her husband was friends with Modigliani’s art dealer. Modigliani became infatuated with Czechowska and made repeated romantic attempts at her even though she was married. In total, he painted ten paintings of Czechowaska, with him using rich colors to paint her and matching them with lighter colors for her clothes that accentuated her skin features. This painting is one of four portraits painted of her.
Other Highlighted Lots:
Lot 18 | David Hockney (b.1937) | Between Kilham and Langtoft, Oil on canvas, in two parts
Painted in 2006
121.9 x 182.9 cm
Provenance:
- Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago
- Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2010
Estimate: £4,000,000-6,000,000
Hammer Price: £4,200,000
Sold: £5,122,000 (around US$6.6 million)
Lot 32 | Franz Marc (1880-1916) | Katzen, Rot und Weiß, Oil on panel
Painted in 1912
52 x 35 cm
Provenance:
- Levin, Berlin, by whom acquired at the Galerie Thannhauser exhibition in January 1913
- (probably) Prof. Schoene, [Berlin], by 1936
- Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin
- Senta Hildebrand, Berlin & Munich, by whom acquired from the above in the late 1930s
- Galerie Dr Rainer Horstmann, Düsseldorf & Hamburg, by whom acquired from the above in 1970
- Elinor Heins, Montreux, by whom acquired from the above in January 1970 and thence by descent to the present owner
Estimate: £4,000,000-6,000,000
Hammer Price: £4,000,000
Sold: £4,880,000 (around US$6.29 million)
Lot 14 | Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) | Untitled, Oilstick on paper
Painted in 1983
127.7 x 250.2 cm
Provenance:
- Robert Miller Gallery, New York
- Private Collection (acquired from the above in 1995)
- Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
- Private Collection, UK
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £2,500,000-3,000,000
Hammer Price: £3,150,000
Sold: £3,851,500 (around US$4.97 million)
Auction Details:
Auction House: Christie's London
Sale: 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale
Date: 5 March 2025 | 6:00 pm (London Local Time)
Lots: 51
Lots Sold: 44
Lots Unsold: 7
Sell Rate: 86.2%
Sale Total: £82,180,500 (around US$10.6 million)