SOTHEBY'S RESULTS: Contemporary Art Day Sale
Sotheby’s May 2012 Contemporary Art sales concluded this afternoon with the Day Sale which totaled $63,932,875 – well within the $50/71 million pre-sale estimate. The sale was 78% sold-by-lot.
Scott Nussbaum, Head of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Day sale commented: “I am delighted with today’s sale total of $63,932,875 which was well within our pre-sale estimate of $50/71 million and the strongest Day Sale result in this category since May 2008. The highlight of the auction was Alexander Calder’s standing mobile The Orange Table which has been in the same family collection for nearly 70 years. The 1943 piece sold for $2,546,500 - the highest price achieved for a work in a Contemporary Art Day sale at Sotheby’s since May 2008. There were also remarkable prices for Gerhard Richter, whose Abstraktes Bild (595-3) from 1986 continued a series of strong prices for the artist when it sold for $2,098,500, and for paintings by Andy Warhol with Jackie from 1964 beating the estimate to fetch $1,202,500 and the 1963 Ambulance Disaster also exceeding the estimate to sell for $962,500. In addition the sale saw strong prices for works by living artists including Kanye Bear by Takashi Murakami which comfortably exceeded the high estimate to sell for $1,202,500 and David Hockney’sPalm Reflected in Pool, Arizona which sold for $962,500, well over the $250/300,000 estimate. I was also pleased to see paintings from the Estate of Theodore J. Forstmann continuing to perform well with Arabe gesticulante by Jean Dubuffet selling for 1,258,500, many multiples of the $50/70,000 estimate and the Romare Bearden paintings achieving strong prices.”
