As with every year, Frieze London's contemporary art fair drew in a global crowd. Major auction houses seeking to take advantage of the increased focus on the city host sales in parallel to the fair, including Sotheby's with their Contemporary Evening Sale on 10 October.
A total of 22 works were presented, with 18 being sold, leading to a sell-through rate of roughly 81%. In total, the sale earned £37.5 million (around US$49 million).
The crowning painting of the sale was David Hockney's L’Arbois, Sainte-Maxime. It was painted in 1968 while Hockney was visiting Oscar-winning director Tony Richardson in South France. The work also represents Hockney's shifting composition focus and artistic technique. Being the highest estimated lot of the sale at between £7 and 10 million, its high estimate was surpassed with a hammer price of £11.5 million (around US$15 million).
Lot 4 | David Hockney (b. 1937) | L’Arbois, Sainte-Maxime, Acrylic on canvas
Painted in 1968
113 x 153 cm
Provenance:
- André Emmerich Gallery, New York
- Carter Burden, New York (acquired from the above in 1969)
- Sotheby’s, New York, 10 May 2005, lot 52 (consigned by the estate of the above)
- Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above)
- Sotheby’s, London, 15 February 2011, lot 28 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £7,000,000 - 10,000,000
Hammer Price: £11,500,000
Sold: £13,150,000 (around US$17.1 million)
The auctioneer opened bidding for this significant David Hockney work at £4.5 million, with bidders clamoring to get their hands on the painting. In seconds, the price had shot up to £6 million through a bid made by Shotheby’s London Deputy Chairman of Contemporary Art James Sevier on behalf of his client on the telephone. This triggered a bidding war between Sevier’s client and the telephone client of Sotheby’s Senior Director and Deputy Chairman Harry Dalmeny.
These telephone clients drove the price of the lot up consistently, with Sotheby’s Executive Director of the house’s collectors group, Brad Bentoff, jumping in as well on behalf of his client on the phone. This three-way bidding war ended with Dalmeny winning the lot for his client with the paddle number 13. Following fees, the client paid a total of £13,150,000 (around US$17.1 million) for the work.
David Hockney | Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972) | 210 x 300 cm | Sold for around US$90.3 million, 2018
Born in Bradford in 1937, David Hockney was educated at the Royal College of Art in London, where he would first feature his art in the exhibition titled New Contemporaries. This signified the start of pop art in the United Kingdom, with Hockney’s work evoking expressionist elements in particular. Hockney’s fame during this time was undergoing a meteoric rise, forcing the Royal College of Art to change its regulations, allowing Hockeny to graduate without ever having written his final essay.
Following graduation, Hockney lived between the UK and the United States, teaching art in various institutions; however, by the late 1960s, most of his time was centered around Los Angeles, London, and Paris. It was in 1968 on a European vacation that Hockney visited Saint-Tropez in southern France. Incidentally, this trip also resulted in the most expensive Hockney painting ever sold at auction, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures).
Hockney used this trip to use photography as a means to inform his future artwork, taking snapshots of the area's natural beauty. Hockney also photographed a small town across the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, Sainte-Maxime. It was this town that inspired L’Arbois Sainte-Maxime, as photographs taken of the Hotel L’Arbois served as the direct material for Hockeny’s artwork.
David Hockney’s source photography that he referenced to paint the work
The composition of the painting draws almost perfectly from the source photograph. The size of the trees, buildings, foliage, and roads were carefully recreated on the canvas and paired with bright and bold colors, which appear to bring the sunny setting of southern France onto the canvas. This focus on composition for Hockney began in the early 1960s with him observing how light and shadow worked to compress surfaces, as well as the benefits of using acrylic paint in his style of work.
In L’Arbois, Sainte-Maxime, this emphasis on composition manifested in his painting of South France’s architecture and trees, as opposed to the region’s much-lauded view of the Mediterranean. Instead, Hockney rather appreciated the blocky stone architecture of the buildings as well as the magnificent trees, seeking to capture their detail in his artwork.
The level of accuracy can be attributed to Hockney's experimenting with new painting techniques. During the late 1960s, Hockney was actively using both etching and lithography and for this work, he would square up the photo onto a canvas, transferring the image directly. For Hockney, it was his interest in the growing movement around photo-realism in the US as well as naturalism in painting that influenced his usage of this method to paint this work.
Furthermore, while playing with these new techniques, Hockney was interested in capturing the banality of everyday scenes and life as more complex, riveting, and emotional scenes that drew people in to reflect on their meaning. Part of Hockeny’s inspiration came from Henri Matisse (1869–1954), who was a frequent painter of southern France and used bold colors and simple shapes, elements that appeared throughout Hockney’s more realistic art throughout the late 1960s.
Lot 14 | Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) | Untitled, Oil on canvas
Painted in 1987
195.6 x 223.5 cm
Provenance:
- Estate of the Artist
- Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
- Private Collection, Seoul (acquired from the above in 2003)
- Sotheby's, New York, May 10, 2005, lot 67 (consigned by the above)
- Gagosian Gallery, New York (acquired from the above)
- Private Collection, Florida (acquired from the above in 2012)
- Private Collection, Switzerland
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Hammer Price: £2,700,000
Sold: £3,165,000 (around US$4.13 million)
Bidding for this de Kooning work opened at £2.2 million. A flurry of early action bidding brought up the price of the lot, with it eventually being won by Caroline Lang Sotheby’s Chairman for Switzerland and DC Europe for her client on the phone with the paddle number 57. After fees, the client paid around £3.16 million for the painting.
Born in Rotterdam in 1904, Willem de Kooning stowed away on a ship bound for Argentina, disembarking in Virginia in 1926. He had intended to become an artist and initially found work as a house painter before moving to Manhattan in 1927, where he worked as an artist and made money by doing more commercial gigs.
His early works and success were rooted in his paintings of human figures; however, as de Kooning aged, he moved away from that style of work and embraced new styles that were far more abstract. This began in the early 1970s and was generally caused by his ongoing depression and his overuse of his previous style of painting, which caused him to become bored with his work. A friend of de Kooning’s recalled that the artist “would like to do now would be very 'free,' and he gently waves his hands in the air.”
This desire to lose the constrictions that bound him artistically led him down an abstract path that interestingly saw him loop back around to his early black-and-white paintings from the late 1940s. Those paintings, many of which were named Untitled as well, were abstract lines that made up recognizable shapes, not dissimilar to the work just sold.
Willem de Kooning | Black Untitled (1946) | 75.9 x 101.6 cm | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Four decades after de Kooning’s original abstract works were first exhibited in 1948, the artist seemingly chose to revisit that period of his work for Untitled, as well as other paintings from this later stage in de Kooning's life. Here, however, there is a certain crisp and clean execution not seen in older de Kooning works, with de Kooning using an array of colors and paints that complement each other.
Additionally, instead of limiting himself to using a brush, de Kooning also made use of a flat taper’s knife, a tool used for working on drywall. While a contractor’s tool may seem like a rather unrefined tool for an artist to use, de Kooning confidently used his tool to create vast, sweeping shapes across the composition, which in this painting manifested in thick lines of indigo and amber that gracefully glide across the canvas. This is paired with the usage of the white space to further accentuate how the colors seem to glow with the strong aura of warm colors.
Art critic Carter Ratcliffe observed that in his later work, de Kooning, by reducing the complexity of his work, was able to add something more profound that was unspoken. Furthermore, while de Kooning originally used this more reserved method with his composition, he was also capable of doing this with his technique, especially as he began using new tools and painting methods.
The presented painting is spotted here in an image of de Kooning’s studio in East Hampton on Long Island, New York. de Kooning lived here starting in 1962 as his depression worsened and would stay there until his passing in 1997
Another one of the important aspects of de Kooning’s later work is how it echoed the work of other artists who came before him. Henri Matisse, in particular, inspired de Kooning with this idea of how figures and shapes collide with the dynamic and abstract compositions in Matisse's work Le Bonheur de Vivre. Piet Mondrian was another influence on de Kooning, as from Mondrian, de Kooning was able to draw on ideas of simplicity and dynamic equilibrium.
Thus, in his old age, de Kooning wasn’t just trying something new in his paintings. He was reflecting on his earliest exhibition and the work of other artists whom he drew inspiration from. This bold new direction his work took was a look back on de Kooning’s growth and maturity as an artist.
Henri Matisse (1869-1954) | Le Bonheur de Vivre (1905-1906), 176.5 cm × 240.7 cm | Barnes Foundation, Phillidelphia
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) | Composition No. II (1930), 51 x 51 cm | Sold: US$51 million, Sotheby's New York, 2022 | The most expensive work by the artist ever sold at auction
Lot 6 | Christopher Wool (b. 1955) | Untitled, Enamel on linen
Created in 2009
264.1 x 198.1 cm
Provenance:
- Luhring Augustine, New York
- Acquired from the above in 2009 by the present owner
Estimate: £2,200,000 - 2,800,000
Hammer Price: £2,400,000
Sold: £2,880,000 (around US$3.76 million)
While bidding started relatively low with an opening price of £1.4 million, bidding picked up rapidly. After a brief exchange of bids, it was won by a bidder in the front rows of the auction floor with paddle number 921, who, after including fees, paid £2.88 (around US$3.76 million).
Christopher Wool was born in 1955 in Chicago, Illinois, growing up there before moving to New York City in 1973 to study at the New York Studio School. At the Studio School, Wool was trained as a formal painter before dropping out after a short while to engage in the exciting world of underground film and music. He also worked as a part-time studio assistant to sculptor Joel Shapiro between 1980 and 1984.
Wool's most famous works were his paintings of large black letters stenciled onto white canvases, inspired by graffiti he saw on white trucks. He would place the letters in strange intervals and remove key vowels, forcing the audience to say the words out loud to make sense of them.
However, this wasn’t Wool’s only medium, as he was willing to experiment and create new forms of work, including abstract paintings. This includes Wool’s famous Gray Paintings series from the 2000s and 2010s. During this period, Wool was mainly living in Marfa, Texas, but also in NYC, where he would often take pictures and produce photo books that featured grainy and somewhat unclear black-and-white photos of the city. These “cheaply” produced images featured only plain scenes of the city.
Christopher Wool | East Broadway Breakdown (1994-1995/2002) | Private Collection | One of Wool’s grayed-out NYC photos. Wool never included people in any of the photos he took, only derelict scenes
Such a unique form of photography would bleed into Wool’s contemporary art, as he was part of a group of artists known as the Pictures Generation, who used photography to inform their understanding of contemporary art. As part of this lineage of thought, Wool used abstract, mechanical, and a limited palette of colors in his paintings, resulting in Wool’s gray-centric series of works.
Wool’s new artistic direction was paired with his new technique discovered in 2000, where Wool accidentally discovered how turpentine and enamel paint interacted. Wool took this discovery and made it his defining feature throughout his new era of art. He had used a soaked rag to try to clean up a patch of yellow enamel from a composition, but instead, it turned into an abstract and chaotic mess, which appealed to Wool.
In Untitled, Wool practices this method of enamel-turpentine painting, but combined with a level of self-awareness and self-editing. To create the work, Wool first smeared and erased the existing black strokes of enamel, creating this grayed-out smear, which was painted over by Wool. In a way, he both destroyed and reasserted control over his work in a form of chaotic energy that has been stated to be similar to graffiti or punk art, where the emphasis is on impact and statement over clarity.
Other Highlight Lots:
Lot 18 | Alexander Calder (1898-1976) | Quinze Feuilles Nories, Sheet metal, wire, and paint
Executed in 1961
137.1 x 317.5 x 223.5 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie Maeght, Paris
- Private Collection, New York
- Guy Ludmer Hotel Druot, Paris, 25 March 1984, lot 96
- Private Collection, Brussels
- Galería Theo, Madrid (acquired from the above circa 1984)
- Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above in 1986)
- Quintana Fine Art, New York (acquired from the above in 1989)
- Weintraub Gallery, New York (acquired from the above in 1989)
- Acquired from the above in 1998 by the present owner
Estimate: £2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Hammer Price: £2,250,000
Sold: £2,700,000 (around US$3.52 million)
Lot 9 | Lucian Freud (1922-2011) | Child with a Dog Toy, Oil on canvas
Painted in 1956
37 x 35 cm
Provenance:
- Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., London
- Colin Tennant, London
- James Kirkman Ltd., London
- Private Collection, United Kingdom (acquired from the above)
- Private Collection, United Kingdom (thence by descent from the above)
- Sotheby's, London, 9 February 2006, lot 23 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Hammer Price: £1,650,000
Sold: £1,980,000 (around US$2.58 million)
Lot 3 | Bridget Riley (b.1931) | Gaillard 2, Oil on linen
Painted in 1989
164 x 227.5 cm
Provenance:
- Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
- Private Collection, New York
- Christie’s, New York, 20 May 1999, lot 156 (consigned by the above)
- Robert Sandelson Gallery, London (acquired from the above)
- Acquired from the above in 2000 by the present owner
Estimate: £1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Hammer Price: £1,600,000
Sold: £1,920,000 (around US$2.5 million)
Lot 15 | Andy Warhol (1928-1987) | Eggs, Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas
Painted in 1982
228.6 x 177.8 cm
Provenance:
- Estate of the Artist
- Jablonka Galerie, Cologne
- Private Collection, New York
- Acquired from the above in 2014 by the present owner
Estimate: £2,200,000 - 3,200,000
Hammer Price: £1,500,000
Sold: £1,800,000 (around US$2.35 million)
Lot 12 | Adrian Ghenie (b.1977) | St. Christopher, Oil on canvas
Painted in 2018
240.7 x 180 cm
Provenance:
- Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp
- Private Collection, London (acquired from the above)
- Acquired from the above in 2018 by the present owner
Estimate: £1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Hammer Price: £1,450,000
Sold: £1,740,000 (around US$2.27 million)
Lot 2 | Matthew Wong (1984-2019) | Moonlight Mile, Acrylic on canvas
Painted in 2017
66 x 147.3 cm
Provenance:
- Cheim & Read, New York
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Hammer Price: £1,350,000
Sold: £1,563,816 (around US$2.04 million)
Lot 11 | Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) | Reclining Figure II, Scented guarea
Executed between 1955-1956
61 x 29.5 x 18.5 cm
Provenance:
- Philip James, London
- Private Collection (by descent from the above)
- Christie’s, London, 21 November 2003, lot 182 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Hammer Price: £1,000,000
Sold: £1,200,000 (around US$1.56 million)
Lot 10 | Paula Rego (1935-2022) | Jenufa, Pastel on paper mounted on aluminum
Painted in 1995
120 x 160 cm
Provenance:
- Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd., London
- Galeria Gilde, Guimarães
- Private Collection, Portugal (acquired from the above in 1996)
- Sotheby’s, London, 12 February 2014, lot 16 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Hammer Price: £850,000
Sold: £1,020,000 (around US$1.33 million)
Lot 19 | Anselm Kiefer (b.1945) | Der Morgenthau Plan, Oil, acrylic, emulsion, shellac and resin on photograph mounted on canvas, in three parts
Painted in 2014
280 x 570 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie Bastian, Berlin
- Private Collection (acquired from the above)
- Soura Kunst GmbH, Bad Honnef
- Acquired from the above in 2016 by the present owner
Estimate: £600,000 - 800,000
Hammer Price: £850,000
Sold: £1,020,000 (around US$1.33 million)
Auction Details:
Auction House: Sotheby’s London
Sale: Contemporary Evening Auction
Date: 9 October 2024
Number of Lots: 22
Sold: 18
Unsold: 4
Sell Rate: 81.8%
Sale Total: £37,582,816 (around US$49 million)