Hockney painting breaks auction record for living artist
Christie’s triumphant sale of David Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), for $90.3 million Thursday night demonstrates the art market’s continued strength for the very best works, but the uniqueness of the piece, and how it was sold, make it an outlier for the top of the market.
The New York auction of the 7-foot by-10-foot painting, creating a record for a living artist, was sold without a reserve—an agreed-upon minimum price between the seller and Christie’s—and without a guarantee by the auction house or a third-party, meaning the painting literally could have gone for $100, as Loic Gouzer, co-chairman of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art department said after the sale.
It didn’t, as bidding quickly escalated over a lively nine minutes or so, with four bidders clamoring for the piece even after it reached the $50 million mark, going eventually to an anonymous bidder on the phone with Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s, Americas, for a hammer price of $80 million.
That figure was the estimate Christie’s boldly used to market the celebrated Hockney, which was the featured painting in an exhibition of the artist’s works that most recently was included in a traveling retrospective organized by the Tate Britain, the Centre Pompidou, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017-18 in honor of Hockney’s 80th year. Hockney is now 81.
Gouzer, who with co-chairman Alex Rotter set upon coaxing the consignor to sell the painting after seeing it at the Tate in London, says offering Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972, without a reserve was the seller’s choice, and not a predetermined strategy on the part of the auction house.
“The consignor decided he wanted the whole world to be able to bid on it,” Gouzer says. “It was courageous. But he knew the quality of the work.”
Working out an estimate for one of Hockney’s most well-known paintings, considered a masterpiece, meant “putting a price on the priceless,” he says. The $80 million range came out of “mixture of market intelligence and, ultimately, guts.”
But it’s a strategy that is unlikely to be repeated soon.
“This was an exceptional case and we won’t see any paintings coming up in the near future with a similar predicted estimate in the very top range and no reserve,” says Morgan Long, senior director of The Fine Art Group, an independent London-based firm of art advisors and finance experts.
“Guarantees add that level of security,” she says, such as Christie’s achieved with the nearly $92 million achieved Tuesday night for Edward Hopper’s Chop Suey.” They can “also aid the buyer who knows what they want.”
While sales from the top three auction houses, including Sotheby’s and Phillips, exceeded expectations by totaling nearly $2 billion by Thursday night, several works with high estimates, including a couple without guarantees, failed to sell. Notable misses included Marsden Hartley’s Pre-War Pageant, estimated at $30 million at Sotheby’s, and Jackson Pollock’s Number 16, once owned by Nelson Rockefeller, estimated at $18 million at Phillips.
“Aggressive estimates hurt those works,” says Evan Beard, national art services executive at U.S. Trust, the private bank of Bank of America. “When you get the house trying to push too hard on art historically important works that may not be as brash and vogue as the other contemporary works, that’s where we saw softness.”
While the results showed that there is still “cultural cache” for owning great works at the top of the market, especially for the “markets-driven collector who has a lot of liquidity,” the uneven response to some of the more aggressive estimates could give the auction houses pause in the future, particularly if the economy or stock markets soften in the spring.
“I expect next season we’ll see a recalibration of estimates and we’re also going to see a recalibration in the guarantee space,” Beard says.
Nigel Glenday, managing director, strategy, for Athena Art Finance, said the Hockney result followed themes seen throughout the week, “namely that collectors seem to be taking price increases in stride, but are being disciplined enough when estimates are stretched relative to the quality and scarcity of the artwork.”
Strong sales at the top of the market included $35.7 million for Mark Rothko’s Untitled (Rust, Blacks on Plum), and $22.6 million for Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park #137, at Christie’s contemporary sale.
At Sotheby’s contemporary evening auction on Wednesday, Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bildachieved $32 million, and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (Pollo Frito), achieved $25.7 million, while René Magritte’s Le Principe du Plaisir, fetched $26.8 million at Sotheby’s Monday sale of impressionist and modern works.
Phillips, meanwhile, realized $22.6 million for Joan Miró’s Femme Dans la Nuit earlier Thursday night at its 20th century and contemporary art sale. All prices include fees.
In more evidence of the market’s strength, Sotheby’s contemporary auction Wednesday night achieved a total $362.6 million, with 97% of lots sold, inching out Christie’s post-war and contemporary evening total of $357.6 million with 85% of lots sold.
Despite these outcomes, much of the market’s health was more evident in the lower-priced day sales by the auction house, and in active bidding for lower-priced works at the evening sales.
At Christie’s Thursday night, this was demonstrated in more than seven minutes of bidding for Alexander Calder’s 21 Feuilles Blanches, which sold for nearly $18 million, with fees, more than double a high estimate of $8 million. Also, a 7-foot by 5.6-foot acrylic on canvas work by the contemporary artist known as Kaws, sold for $2.4 million, with fees, four times a high estimate of $500,000. At Phillips earlier in the evening, Kaws’ Untitled (Fatal Group), sold for $2.7 million, with fees, three times its high estimate of $900,000.
For Gouzer at Christie’s, the sale of the Hockney, the Calder, and the $21.7 million realized for Francis Bacon’s Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing, were among highlights of the evening. But so was the sale of Robert Colescott’s Cultural Exchange, a monumental, 7.6-foot by 9.6-foot acrylic on canvas, painted in 1987. The work was expected to sell for at least $250,000 and sold for $912,000, with fees.
“He’s an artist who I find very important,” Gouzer says. “We realize all the time how important and foundational he is for a whole generation of artists.”
