Records for English painting and Fontana's cuts push the auction

The catalogue offered by Sotheby's on the evening of 4 March in a crowded room inaugurated the traditional London auction session devoted to modern and contemporary art, with results that did not seem to be affected by the climate of international political uncertainty. The auction inaugurated the new commission regime for buyers: 28% on the hammer price up to £1.5m, 22% for the £1.5-6m range, 15% for the portion over £6m. The overall result of £131.7m from the estimate of £95.7-135.7m exceeded last years' catalogues, thanks to the sale of all 53 lots offered (after only one withdrawal) and also the reopening before the end of the auction of two lots that were initially unsold. It is quite unusual to sell 100% of the lots in catalogues from different estates, a difficult result to achieve even when dispersing individual collections. As many as 20 of the lots offered were protected by third-party guarantees, but only four of these were among the top 10 realisations; in our view, nine of these guarantees may have been essential for the award of the lots to their respective guarantors.

“Children’s Swimming Pool, 11 o’clock Saturday Morning, August” 1969, di Leon Kossoff, oil on board, 152,4 x 205,7 cm

Almost £36 million is owed for four paintings from the Lewis Collection of post-war British art. The main surprise was the result for a large, unusually sunny composition by Leon Kossoff from 1969, depicting a public swimming pool with typical Brutalist architecture, crowded with children on an August morning, which was long fought over by a dozen suitors to a record price of £5.2 million, a multiple of the estimate of £600-800,000.
There was also no shortage of bids for one of the two Lucian Freud works, an intense and detailed portrait of a young painter from 1957-58, which fetched close to its high estimate of £6m at £5.8m to £7.2m with commissions; Freud's other painting in the catalogue, a small female nude from 1987, fetched only one bid at its low estimate of £6m to £7.4m with commissions.

“Self-Portrait” 1972, di Francis Bacon, 36 x 30,5 cm

The most important result, and the only lot above the £10m threshold, was for a Francis Bacon whose self-portrait from the dramatic year 1972 thanks to decisive bids between three telephones quickly rose to £16m, above the estimate of £8-12m. Saved, however, probably thanks to the guarantee, a work byDavid Hockney from 1965 fetched £1.5m, well below its estimate of £2.5-3.5m. A monumental outdoor sculpture byBarb>Barbara Hepworth, estimated at £3.5-4.5m, also possibly ended up at the guarantee at £2.8m, rising to £3.5m with commission.

A German collection of seven works from the 1950s-60s guaranteed by the auction house offered as many as five works by Fontana, led by a 2 metre 'Spatial Concept' from 1960 with holes and cuts on a black and green background, also guaranteed by third parties at an estimate of 8.5-12 million, which after a couple of bids online and in the auction room ended up at 8.1 million, rising to 9.8 million with commissions, an important price for a work that is not easy. Even a perfect 'Waiting' with a single cut on unfinished canvas from 1960, an early and experimental period in the conception of 'cuts', stopped at 1.4 million, below the estimate of 1.5-2 million, after a single raise to 1.8 million with commissions, narrowly surpassed by a bronze 'Nature' (posthumous) which fetched 1.9 million, from an estimate of £1.2-1.8 million. An unusually shaped hexagonal Theatre, initially unsold from an estimate of £350-450k, was offered again at the end of the auction and sold with a single bid to £260k, while a rather sombre 'Spatial Concept' from 1955 found a single buyer at £650k, below the estimate before commissions were added. Also part of the German collection, a medium sized bronze of Alberto Giacometti 'Femme Debout' surpassed its estimate, also contested in the room to £5.1m.

Concetto spaziale, 1960, di Lucio Fontana, oil on canvas, 200 x 205 cm

Four of the top ten realisations are from Impressionism and the 20th century avant-gardes. They begin with a classic landscape by Monet from 1884, the 'Gardener's House' in the sunny south of France, which fetched £6.7 million to a lady in the room, from a guaranteed estimate of £6.5-8.5 million, or £8.2 million with commission. Less enthusiasm for a typical pontillist composition by Signac depicting the Port of Marseille in 1934, a large format canvas that ended up at the low guaranteed estimate of £4m and approached £5m with commissions. The same guaranteed estimate also applied to Leger's 1919 composition which fetched £4.3m, while one of Magritte's two Surrealist works 'Le Buste Impassible', a large canvas from 1926, which started at an estimate of £4.5-6.5m, stopped after a single bid at £3.9m.