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Desperate Housewife bidders set £5 million record for a Hockney
Tom Teodorczuk14 May 2009
An auction record for a David Hockney picture was set at Christie's in New York when his Beverly Hills Housewife sold for £5.28 million.
Hockney's portrait of Californian philanthropist Betty Freeman, painted in 1966-7, was the top lot in a sale that saw the resurgence of the modern-art market following a year in which prices have tumbled due to the credit crunch.
Beverly Hills Housewife was the subject of a telephone bidding war with the winning buyer a mystery private collector. It sold at the middle of its pre-sale estimate.
The 12-foot double canvas depicts Freeman in a pink dress, standing on the patio of her home. It was owned by its subject and hung in her house until her death in January.
Hockney, who had just arrived in Los Angeles, had first asked Freeman if he could paint her Beverly Hills swimming pool for his California Dreaming series.
The previous record for a Hockney work was The Splash, which fetched £2.92 million at Sotheby's in June 2006. Christie's deputy chairman Brett Gorvy said: “Until now David
Hockney has been lagging slightly behind his compatriots [Francis] Bacon and [Lucian] Freud.
“To see this painting make a world record price is extraordinary for us... but what this really showed is that he's a truly international artist and it was a fantastic international response to the quality of his work.
“These are tough times but an artist like Hockney can transcend that.”
Hockney, 71, exclusively showcased his iPhone paintings in the London Evening Standard last month. Just five of Christie's 54 lots went unsold with the £62.5 million total sale value comfortably exceeding the estimate of £47.3 million. The likes of Scottish painter Peter Doig, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, reverted back to enjoying strong sales.
Doig's 1993 picture Night Fishing sold for £3.1 million, compared with a high estimate of £2.6 million.
The buyer, New York and London art mogul Larry Gagosian, had purchased Jeff Koons's Easter egg for £3.6 million at Sotheby's the night before. That auction saw much poorer sales and suggested the market was still suffering.
Amy Cappellazzo, co-head of contemporary art at Christie's said: “This was a dazzling sale.” Asked whether Christie's would be increasing the number of lots at its next major contemporary art auction to the levels prior to the credit crunch, Ms Cappellazzo responded: “London. June. Go!”
