Auction records at Phillips de Pury [11/12/2010]
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 auction results generated by the auction company Phillips de Pury.
Despite its poor overall revenue figures (Phillips de Pury’s global market share in the fine art segment has not exceeded 4% since 2002), the increasingly aggressive and seductive marketing strategies adopted by the company seem to be working. Last week Phillips de Pury’s Contemporary Art Evening in New York, organised by Philippe Ségalot, generated the best revenue figure in the firm’s entire history: USD 102.7 million. Nearly half that sum – $56.5m – came from Andy WARHOL ’s Men in Her Life; however, the results clearly confirmed the recovery of the Contemporary Art segment. Likewise, the results posted by Christie's and Sotheby's for their Contemporary Art sales have also confirmed the return of collectors' appetites for Contemporary Art (for example, Christie's set a new Roy LICHTENSTEIN record of $38m).
Top 10: Best auction results at Phillips de Pury
| Rank |
Artist |
Hammer Price |
Artwork |
Sale |
| 1 |
Andy WARHOL |
$56 500 000 |
Men in her life (1962) |
11/08/2010 (NEW YORK) |
| 2 |
Paul CÉZANNE |
$35 000 000 |
La montagne Sainte-Victoire |
05/07/2001 (NEW YORK) |
| 3 |
Kasimir Sevrinovitch MALEVICH |
$15 500 000 |
Suprematist Composition |
05/11/2000 (NEW YORK) |
| 4 |
Paul CÉZANNE |
$15 000 000 |
Fillette à la poupée (c.1902-1904) |
05/07/2001 (NEW YORK) |
| 5 |
Auguste RENOIR |
$12 000 000 |
La liseuse (1877) |
05/07/2001 (NEW YORK) |
| 6 |
Jean-Michel BASQUIAT |
$10 000 000 |
Fallen Angel (1981) |
05/15/2008 (NEW YORK) |
| 7 |
Henri MATISSE |
$9 500 000 |
Nu couché, Aurore (1907) |
05/07/2001 (NEW YORK) |
| 8 |
Egon SCHIELE |
$9 000 000 |
Haus mit trocknender Wäsche (1917) |
11/05/2001 (NEW YORK) |
| 9 |
Jean-Michel BASQUIAT |
$8 765 680 |
Grillo (1984) |
06/22/2007 (LONDON) |
| 10 |
Damien HIRST |
$8 533 140 |
Eternity (2002-2004) |
10/13/2007 (LONDON) |
Contemporary and Post-war Art at Phillips de Pury
On 8 November 2010, Phillips de Pury generated its best-ever total for an art sale, primarily on the back of a rare Andy Warhol grid print entitled Men in her Life which fetched $56.5m against a pre-sale range of $42-52m – just $7.5m behind his auction record of $64m for Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I).
In fact this Warhol result now represents Phillips de Pury’s best-ever hammer price (by a long way) and his protégé, Jean-Michel BASQUIAT , accounts for two other places in this Phillips de Pury Top 10.
Basquiat – whose posthumous 50th birthday has been the occasion for a major retrospective at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris (15 October - 30 January 2011) – is in 6th place with Fallen Angel, which sold within its pre-sale estimate for $12m in May 2008, and in 9th place with Grillo, which fetched $8,765,680 in June 2007. The latter work, consisting of four wood panels, changed hands for $290,000 in 1990 and then for $1m nine years later.
The only other Contemporary artist in this ranking (in 10th place) is Damien HIRST whose 2 x 3-metre butterflies painting Eternity fetched $8,553,140 at Phillips de Pury in October 2007.
The auction house is continuing to bet on recent artists like Hirst in a bid to maintain its reputation as a trendsetter.
Impressionist and Modern Art...
Four of the ten best Phillips de Pury results were scored at the sale of the collection belonging to the famous German art dealer Heinz Berggruen – THE BERGGRUEN COLLECTION – as part of the Impressionist & Modern Art sale on 7 May 2001 in New York:
Paul CÉZANNE ’s La montagne Sainte-Victoire and his Fillette à la poupée, Auguste RENOIR ’s La liseuse and Henri MATISSE ’s Nu couché, Aurore.
Fetching $35m, La Montagne Sainte-Victoire is the artist’s second highest auction price (and Phillips de Pury’s 2nd best result), while La fillette à la poupée fetched $15m in May 2001 (the auctioneer’s 4th best result).
Renoir’s La liseuse sold for $12m (5th place) and Matisse’s bronze sculpture Nu couché, Aurore fetched $9.5m (7th place) after selling for $8.4m in 1999 against a low estimate of $2m .
Remember that on 3 November 2010, Christie's sold a rare Matisse bronze work Nu de dos, 4 état (Back IV) for $43,5m, the artist’s new best auction result.
The ranking’s 3rd place belongs to a Suprematist Composition by Kasimir Sevrinovitch MALEVICH that sold at Phillips de Pury’s Impressionist & Modern sale in May 2000 for $170,000 short of its low estimate at $14,830,000 (which nevertheless remained the artist’s record for 8 years) and Egon SCHIELE ’s Haus mit trocknender Wäsche is in 8th place of this ranking having fetched $9m at Phillips de Pury in November 2001.
After the success of the Carte Blanche-Phillipe Ségalot sale, the auctioneer will continue to entrust its Cartes Blanche sales to external personalities ... will new records be fetched again?
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