De Kooning Leads Sotheby's London Sale to $61.1 Million

By Elena Vasquez

Sotheby's London sold £46.1 million ($61.1 million) of contemporary art on Thursday, led by a Willem de Kooning abstraction that fetched £9.8 million ($12.9 million) with fees. The hammer total of £36.9 million, before the house's fees, fell short of the sale's low estimate of £41.7 million ($55.3 million) against an overall range of £41.7–58.6 million ($55.3–77.8 million).

The one-hour sale offered 34 lots, 10 of them guaranteed. Three works—by Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, and Leon Kossoff—were withdrawn before the auction. Pieces by Banksy, Georg Baselitz, Jadé Fadojutimi, Lucian Freud, Gerhard Richter, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye went unsold. The takeaway in plain terms: 28 of 34 lots sold, but at prices the room did not push.

The saleroom was full, with long silent pauses that at times made the evening feel like a courtroom, all eyes on auctioneer Tom Eddison. Last year's equivalent sale totaled £47.6 million ($63.3 million), led by a Francis Bacon at £13 million ($17.5 million) — roughly $4 million more than Thursday's top lot. Sotheby's session came one night after Christie's London totaled £218.6 million ($289.4 million) across two sales, more than double its 2025 figure, and a day after Tilda Swinton and Raf Simons were seen entering Frieze London, where many dealers reported robust sales.

What drove the top prices?

The de Kooning, an untitled abstract from 1977 measuring 5 feet wide, carried an estimate of £8–12 million ($10.6–15.9 million) and hammered at £8.2 million, within range. It last sold at Sotheby's New York in 2015 for $6.1 million — a gain of roughly $6.8 million over eleven years.

Gerhard Richter's 8-foot-wide Abstraktes Bild (1992) took second place. Estimated at £6–8 million ($7.9–10.6 million), it hammered below estimate at £5.4 million and sold for £6.7 million ($8.9 million) with fees. The seller had bought it at Christie's London in 2011 for £3.6 million ($5.7 million at the time).

An untitled dark-hued Mark Rothko from 1969 came third. Estimated at £3–4 million ($4–5.3 million), it hammered at its low estimate and fetched £3.8 million (just shy of $5 million) with fees. Its last appearance was Christie's New York in 1992, when the seller paid $264,000 — a sum that has since grown nearly nineteenfold. Works by Baselitz, David Hockney, Albert Oehlen, and Andy Warhol filled out the top 10, with Baselitz, Hockney, and Warhol each appearing twice.

Who was the night's surprise?

Michael Andrews's Butterfly Fish (1978) was the runaway success. Depicting the titular animal, it hammered at £550,000 on a high estimate of £120,000 — more than four times the ceiling — and sold for £704,000 ($933,117) after an extended contest, setting a new auction high for a work on paper by the artist. Andrews, less known today than School of London peers Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, was renowned by his contemporaries. "Mike is so economical," fellow painter Frank Auerbach once said of him. "He paints only masterpieces."

Ottilie Windsor, head of contemporary art at Sotheby's London, explained the dynamics in a post-sale interview. "The paintings that he did make were often bought as they were being made by a group of collectors who followed his work really closely," she told ARTnews. "[Those collectors have] never really needed to sell and so we get very, very low supply of his work to the market; when they do come up, they really do very well."

How did younger artists fare?

Results for the under-50 set were mixed. Louis Fratino's Kissing Couple (2019) brought a within-estimate £320,000 ($424,144); Fratino currently has a sold-out show at David Zwirner's London showroom. Adrian Ghenie's The Wall (2019) also sold within estimate at £640,000 ($848,288). Works by Fadojutimi and Yiadom-Boakye found no buyers.

"I would say the market is very cautious," Ivana Miloradovic, art historian and consultant, told ARTnews at the sale. Most lots, she said, "either underperformed or were at the lower end." She also noted the local pull: "British sales on British soil are always joyous," citing strong demand for Hockney's 10th—22nd June 2021, Water Lilies in the Pond with Pots of Flowers (2021) and Andrews's Butterfly Fish. "Everybody knows the artist, the gossip and the history. It was a homey atmosphere."

Windsor framed selling 28 of 34 lots as a success. "Any dealer at the [Frieze] fair would be thrilled to sell nearly 30 secondary market lots." There is both interest and money in the market, she said, "but the market continues to be selective and continues to surprise us with what it's looking for."

With Christie's surging and Sotheby's landing under its low estimate in the same week, London's October sales suggest money is present — but only for the works consignors price to move.