Auction records at Christie’s

Every fortnight Artprice posts a new or updated ranking in its Alternate-Friday Top Series. The theme of today’s TOP article is the 10 best-ever auction results generated by Christie’s.

After the latest Impressionist & Modern Art sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York, the duopoly’s revenue totals show a clear recovery in market dynamism vs. the previous year, especially at Christie’s whose total from its 3 November 2009 sale was exceptionally weak ($56.8m ). This year Christie’s much improved results included three new records. Indeed, from a market share perspective, Christie’s 2010 track record on Fine Art has been very positive with 38% of the global market in the first half of the year vs. 36% for Sotheby’s.

Top 10: Best auction results at Christie’s

The total value of Christie’s Top 10 results amounts to $639.8m
In first place… Pablo PICASSO… with the world’s best ever auction result for a work of art: Nude, Green Leaves and Bust fetched $95m. This painting – from the Frances Lasker Brody Collection – was sold at Christie’s New York on 4 May 2010 generating nearly a third of the sale’s total revenue. Alberto GIACOMETTI also set a new record at the sale when his Grande tête mince fetched $47.5m, even if this score is only the artist’s second best result (substantially behind his all-time record which was generated at Sotheby’s in London on 3 February 2010 (L’homme qui marche I, $92.5m).
Christie’s also produced another superb Picasso result in November 2000 when Femme aux bras croisés (1901-1902) fetched $50m (taking 7th place in this ranking).

Christie’s 2nd best-ever result came from Gustav KLIMT’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912) which sold for $78.5m in November 2006. The work, previously confiscated from the Bloch-Bauer family by the Nazis, had just been returned to the owners’ heirs by the Austrian government.

Vincent VAN GOGH, whose works have become increasingly rare at public sales (only 10 were auctioned in 2010) signed his two best-ever results at Christie’s in New York: Portrait du Docteur Gachet fetched $75m in May 1990 and Portrait de l’artiste sans barbe sold for $65m in November 1998.

Andy WARHOL, the only “Post-War” artist in this ranking, has 6th place in this Top 10 for his Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) which fetched $64m on 16 May 2007 at Christie’s in New York. Indeed, that score was not only four times better than Warhol’s previous record, it was also the artist’s personal best-ever result, and it remains so today.

With seven of Christie’s Top 10 results coming from New York, the Big Apple is clearly the world’s primary art market location, followed by London and Paris.

Paris: one place in Christie’s Top 10…
At the Impressionist & Modern sale organised by Christie’s in Paris on 14 June 2010, Amedeo MODIGLIANI’s Tête fetched $46.6m, nearly ten times its low estimate. This single result on French soil may be only 9th in Christie’s best-ever ranking, but it is also 2nd in the ranking of France’s best-ever auction results behind Picasso’s Les noces de Pierrette which fetched €45.7m in 1989.

London: two places in Christie’s Top 10…
In February 2008, Francis BACON recorded one of his best-ever results when his exceptional Untitled triptych, Untitled (1974/77) – measuring at least 4-metres across – sold for $46.3m.
Four months later, Christie’s generated a new record for Claude MONET and for Impressionist art in general when Le Bassin aux Nymphéas fetched $71.8m in June 2008. This very large format painting from 1919 (of which only four comparable versions exist) is considered one of the artist’s most important later works.