Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, October 13 and 14, 2010 @Phillips London

The photography on offer in Phillips' Frieze week Contemporary Art sales in London last week delivered rather uninspiring results. The Buy-In rate for photography (across both the Evening and Day auctions) was over 30% and the Total Sale Proceeds from the photo lots missed the low end of estimate range. It certainly doesn't help when 3 out of the top 4 lots fail to sell, but the lack of positive surprises in the two sales says that the bidding action was relatively muted.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 36
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £471000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £657000
Total Lots Sold: 25
Total Lots Bought In: 11
Buy In %: 30.56%
Total Sale Proceeds: £442700

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 3
Low Sold: 1
Low Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 66.67%
Total Low Estimate: £13000
Total Low Sold: £3500

Mid Total Lots: 25
Mid Sold: 19
Mid Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 24.00%
Total Mid Estimate: £349000
Total Mid Sold: £265500

High Total Lots: 8
High Sold: 5
High Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 37.50%
Total High Estimate: £295000
Total High Sold: £173700

The top lot by High estimate was lot 212, Andreas Gursky, Cairo Übersicht, 1993, at £35000-45000; it did not sell. The top outcome of the sale was lot 208, Candida Höfer, Théâtre de la Monnaie/Koninklijke Muntschouwburg, 2006, at £46850. (Image at right, via Phillips.)

88.00% of the lots that sold had proceeds above or in the estimate range, and there were no surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate).

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).

Howick Place
London SW1P 1BB

No comments:

Post a Comment