Christie's London Totals $289 Million, With Records for Riley and Popova

Christie's London rang up £218.6 million ($289.4 million) across two evening sales on Wednesday, more than doubling last year's total. Seven auction records fell, five of them during the sale of British businessman Peter Simon's collection. A Wassily Kandinsky painting fetched £31.6 million ($41.8 million) in the second auction. All prices include buyer's premium.

The sales, timed to Frieze London and Frieze Masters, achieved a combined sell-through rate of 91 percent by lot and 96 percent by value. Simon's collection alone brought £107.5 million ($142.3 million) — the highest-value single-owner collection ever sold at Christie's London. The follow-up 20th- and 21st-century sale added £111.1 million ($147 million).

The evening began with a hiccup. The Simon sale started at 6 p.m., but Christie's live-auction website advertised a 7 p.m. start in some places. At least three market professionals, including an adviser with a global clientele, believed the later time. Whether anyone missed bidding remains unclear.

How did the Simon collection perform?

The room was packed regardless. Simon, founder of British retailer Monsoon and a fixture on every edition of ARTnews's Top 200 Collectors list since 2005, saw his 41 lots sell 98 percent by lot and 99 percent by value. Only one work failed to find a buyer.

The biggest surprise came from Liubov Popova. Her Painterly Architectonic sold for £7.64 million ($10.1 million), more than three times its £2.5 million ($3.3 million) high estimate, after nearly eight minutes of bidding in the room and on the phones. The price set a new auction record for the Russian avant-garde painter.

Other records went to:

• Bridget Riley's Streak 2 — £5.21 million ($6.9 million)
• David Bomberg's San Miguel, Toledo, Afternoon — £3.26 million ($4.32 million), drawing cheers and a request from the auctioneer for a closer inspection
• Works by Portia Zvavahera and Barbara Hepworth

The collection's most expensive work, Francis Bacon's Figure in Movement, fetched £17.19 million ($22.8 million) to a bidder in the room. Piet Mondrian's Composition A, with Double Line and Yellow brought £9.71 million ($12.86 million). Joan Miró's Peinture (Les amants – Adam et Eve) sold for £8.56 million ($11.33 million), and Hurvin Anderson's Last House made £5.7 million ($7.5 million) against a £2 million–£3 million estimate.

What did the guarantees conceal?

Philip Hoffman, chairman and founder of the Fine Art Group, had predicted a split outcome before the sale. A handful of works would race ahead, he told ARTnews, while the rest would sell with relatively little competition. He also said Frieze Masters buyers had been holding back money for the auction.

Afterward, Hoffman called the two sales a clear indication of a solid market — with an asterisk. He noted that 29 of the 41 lots in the Simon sale carried third-party guarantees (irrevocable pre-arranged bids that transfer financial risk before bidding starts). "These auctions are staged, managed, and already pumped up to the max for the best guarantees they can get," he said.

The end of the Simon sale proved his point. Glenn Ligon's Large Silver In Show Business and Beatriz Milhazes's O Rapaz (The Boy) each sold for £192,000 ($250,000), against low estimates of £400,000 ($529,000) and £300,000 ($397,000). The room went mute.

What happened in the second sale?

Energy returned during the break. Two Josef Albers works exceeded their estimates, then René Magritte's Le seize septembre fetched £3.26 million ($4.3 million), well above its £1.8 million ($2.4 million) high estimate.

David Hockney's Dog Painting 17, at auction for the first time, prompted applause and a spirited contest involving Christie's London specialist Edmond Francey and at least three phone bidders. It fetched £3.51 million ($4.64 million). Flora Yukhnovich's Capriccio followed at £2.2 million ($2.9 million), beating its £1.5 million ($1.98 million) high estimate.

Silence fell for Mondrian's Composition III (1920), as spectators raised their cameras to record its £25.2 million ($33.4 million) sale, mid-range within estimate. But the Kandinsky stole the night. Auctioneer Adrien Meyer called Das bunte Leben "the most important early work by the artist to ever come to auction." Nearly 20 bids ricocheted across the room before specialist Maria Los secured it on a £27 million ($35.7 million) hammer, against a £25 million high estimate. The painting was restituted to the heirs of Hedwig Lewenstein-Weyermann in 2023.

The closing stretch turned rough. After Warhol's Mona Lisa (Reversal Series) sold for £1.5 million ($1.98 million), works by Cy Twombly, George Condo, Alberto Giacometti, and Lucian Freud failed to find buyers. Igshaan Adams's bead-and-textile sculpture The certainty of being a rose (ii) fetched £96,000 ($127,000) despite a reminder that proceeds would benefit environmental charities — still an artist record.

The second sale finished at 85 percent by lot, well below the Simon collection's 98 percent. Hoffman remains unconvinced either way. He's waiting for the Antonio Homem Sonnabend collection, estimated above $50 million and offered without guarantees, to give a cleaner reading of the market.