The rash of major sales continued in London two days ago with another Contemporary Art sale at Sotheby’s. The total realised at the sale was $123 million with 91% of lots selling.
The highest price was $10.8 million for Apex by Jean-Michel Basquiat, an artist who’s work I simply don’t appreciate. This same piece had sold in 1988 for just $28,190.
More to my taste, Gerhard Richter (one of my favourites artists) had a piece Abstraktes Bild sell for $9.12 million, smack in the middle of its pre-sale estimate.
Perhaps more interestingly, a very Lucian Freud-ish painting by Jenny Saville called Juncture sold for $7.17 million, a massive increase from the same work’s $656,000 price tag in 2009. It stands 12 feet tall.
Jak's View of Vancouver v.3 