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Mar '07 - Record Sales for Contemporary Art
Record Sales for
Contemporary Art - £386m was spent on art in a
single week.
Unfortunately
not at The Fusion Gallery - £186.64 million, at
Sotheby's, and just under £200 million, at Christie's.
Every February
Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips, hold art sales.
New York is the centre of the art world and traditionally
the London sales are where the houses sell fewer works
of lesser quality to smaller numbers of people. This
week London broke all records, selling more paintings
at higher prices to more people than ever before.
Small is beautiful
- Roy Lichtenstein's "VIIP!" 20 by 30 centimeters
opened the sale and fetched £580,000
Roy
Lichtenstein's "VIIP!"
Frank Stella's 31-by-31-centimeter
"Labyrinth" fetched £288,000 and Jim
Dine's diminutive "Flesh Tie" (28 by 30 centimeters)
managed a creditable £138,000.
And large is beautiful
too - Alberto Burri's very large "Sacco e rosso"
(The Bag Is Red) became the first big winner in Christie's
evening auction with a world record price of £1.92
million.
‘Alberto Burri's
"Sacco e rosso"
£14 million
was reached for Study for Portrait II by Francis Bacon
which is almost double the price of any previous Bacon
painting sold at auction — the previous high had
been reached at Sotheby's New York in November when
"Version No.2 of lying figure with hypodermic syringe"
brought $15 million.
Francis Bacon –
Study for Portrait II
Peter Doig, a Scottish
painter has become one of the world's most successful
living artists after an unnamed Russian collector spent
£5.73 million for "White Canoe" a landscape
dated "1990/1991" inspired by the firm Friday
the 13th, making it the most expensive work ever sold
by a European living artist. The Edinburgh-born painter
has become more expensive than British heavyweights
such as David Hockney and Lucian Freud.
Sotheby's described
it as a phenomenal achievement, a record for a living
European artist.
Peter Doig - White Canoe
Frank Auerbach's "Camden Theatre
in the Rain" set a world record price and sold
for £1.92 million, again this was far above the
highest figure suggested by Sotheby's.
Gerhard Richter's "Abstraktes
Bild" of 1991 reached £2.82 million Abstract
though it may be, the picture conjures the image of
blood in a stream sending back shimmery reflections.
Piero Manzoni's "Achrome", creased fabric
coated in white kaolin on canvas creates a rippling
effect fetched £1.7 million.
Record banking bonuses in London
and demand from collectors in emerging markets such
as China and Russia are fueling the rise in contemporary
art prices, which have quadrupled in the past 10 years
Record prices, record sales -
there is a theory that good art is the most expensive
art, but I wouldn't necessarily say that anyone really
believes this any more!
‘When
you are looking for Art,
The Fusion Gallery is the place to start’
Judy Webber
Gallery Director
The Fusion Gallery
For further
details please contact:
Judy Webber
Gallery Director
Tel: + 34 966 880 466 or + 34 902 888 066
Mob: + 34 696 853 007
Email: judy@thefusiongallery.com
Web: www.thefusiongallery.com
Location: 1 Calle Jesus, Casco Antiquo, (Near the church)
Altea
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