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Art buyers put their money on Doig as the next Hockney
Godfrey Barker1 Jul 2009
Christie's defied the chill of recession to stage a £19million auction of contemporary art in London - with 86 per cent of the lots selling.
Last night's sale did not quite match the success of a similar summer auction at rival Sotheby's last week, when bidders paid £25.5million, buying 97 per cent of the art works.
Both London sales were well down in size on last summer's contemporary art blockbusters - which raised £95million for Sotheby's and £86million at Christie's - and much weaker in what they offered. But prices were not much down.
This was notably true for the Glasgow painter Peter Doig, whose large animal's-eye views of silent scenes are a cult market among collectors.
Christie's took £3,009,250 for Doig's neon-lit panorama Night Playground of 1997, and Sotheby's £2,057,250 for his Canadian farm landscape Almost Grown. Nine or 10 bidders competed for each picture. Both prices were far over the high estimate.
Was it speculation? Many buyers see the 50-year-old Doig as the successor to Lucian Freud, David Hockney and Francis Bacon at the high-priced end of contemporary British painting and thus a sure bet.
"Speculation is alive and well," said Ed Dolman, Christie's chief executive. "But in 2009 speculators pay in cash. They are not borrowing to buy. This market is liquid."
Those who looked on Damien Hirst as a speculators' bubble certain to burst were surprised when four spot, spin and butterfly pictures at the two auction houses sold at prices up to £657,250.
Hirst's £111million bonanza at Sotheby's last September marked the peak of the 2008 contemporary art market and buyers predicted that Hirst prices had only one way to go: down. Instead, Teflon-coated Damien carries on.
Low-risk American art from the past 75 years also found buyers.
Andy Warhol took top price at Sotheby's with £3,737,250 for newspaper collage Mrs McCarthy and Mrs Brown (Tunafish Disaster), a surpassingly ugly 1963 silver-painted screenprint.
Richard Prince, the painter of erotic images we can't forget, picked up £1,721,250 at Christie's for his paperback cover Country Nurse and Jeff Koons earned £1,105,250 for Moustache from the Popeye series which goes on show at the Serpentine Gallery from tomorrow.
But enthusiasm only fired strongly for Alexander Calder, the artist who gave his life to complex mobiles. He earned £2,617,250 for an early 1934 wooden creation - £800,000 above the high estimate.
Mr Dolman and Sotheby's chairman Henry Wyndham agreed that buyers were awash with money but that sellers were cautious and reluctant to sell - for cash they did not want at zero interest.
Why does art rise when the FTSE and Wall Street struggle?
"Demand is unbelievably robust," said Bill Ruprecht, Sotheby's chief executive, visiting from New York. "Art represents value...and unlike other financial instruments, it is a tangible. It stays with you whatever happens."
Reader views (1)
I wonder if anyone can tell me the prices of paintings by Harold Bilson, and if anyone would be interested in buying. We have had two of his paintings now for over 30 years and they are delightful.
Please can anyone help. Thank You
- Elizabeth Taylor, dallas tx, 01/07/2009 14:05
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