English
Christie’s London generated £218.6 million ($289.4 million) across two evening sales on Wednesday, more than doubling the previous year’s total. The strong results offer an encouraging signal for the broader art market ahead of next month’s major New York auctions. Seven auction records fell during the evening, five of them during the sale of British businessman Peter Simon’s personal collection.
Peter Simon Collection Breaks Christie’s London Record
The “Monsoon: The Peter Simon Collection” sale opened the evening and quickly became the main event. Simon, founder of British fashion retailer Monsoon, has appeared on every edition of the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list since 2005. His collection achieved £107.5 million ($142.3 million), making it the highest-value single-owner collection ever sold at Christie’s London. The sale achieved a 98 percent sell-through rate by lot and 99 percent by value. Only one of the 41 works failed to find a buyer.
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However, the evening began with some confusion. Christie’s live-auction website advertised a 7 p.m. start time in some places, while the sale actually began at 6 p.m. At least three market professionals, including an adviser with a global clientele, arrived expecting the later start. Whether anyone missed bidding as a result remains unclear.
Despite the mix-up, Christie’s was packed when the sale began. The most expensive work in the Simon collection, 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). Hurvin Anderson’s Last House fetched £5.7 million ($7.5 million), well above its £2 million–£3 million estimate.
One of the biggest surprises of the night came from Russian avant-garde painter Liubov Popova. Her work Painterly Architectonic sold for £7.64 million ($10.1 million), more than three times its £2.5 million high estimate. Nearly eight minutes of bidding from both the room and telephone bidders drove the price higher. The result set a new auction record for the artist.
Further records also fell for Bridget Riley’s Streak 2, which sold for £5.21 million ($6.9 million), and David Bomberg’s San Miguel, Toledo, Afternoon, which brought £3.26 million ($4.32 million). The Bomberg bidding drew cheers from the room, and the auctioneer paused to request a closer look at the painting. Additional records were set for artists Portia Zvavahera and Barbara Hepworth.
The final two lots of the Simon sale, Glenn Ligon’s Large Silver In Show Business and Beatriz Milhazes’s O Rapaz (The Boy), each sold for £192,000 ($250,000), well below their low estimates of £400,000 and £300,000 respectively. By that point, the room had gone quiet.
Kandinsky Leads the 20th and 21st Century Evening Sale
After a short break, energy returned for the second sale of the evening. Two Josef Albers works exceeded their estimates early on. René Magritte’s Le seize septembre then fetched £3.26 million ($4.3 million), comfortably above its £1.8 million high estimate.
British enthusiasm was evident when David Hockney’s Dog Painting 17 came to auction for the first time. Christie’s London specialist Edmond Francey competed against at least three telephone bidders in a spirited contest. The painting eventually sold for £3.51 million ($4.64 million), drawing applause from the room. British painter Flora Yukhnovich’s Capriccio also outperformed expectations, fetching £2.2 million ($2.9 million) against a £1.5 million high estimate.
A moment of collective awe followed when Mondrian’s Composition III (1920) came under the hammer. Spectators and bidders alike raised their cameras to capture the moment. The painting sold for £25.2 million ($33.4 million), landing squarely within its £20 million–£30 million estimate range.
Although the Mondrian had been expected to achieve the highest price of the evening, Wassily Kandinsky’s Das bunte Leben proved to be the true standout. Auctioneer Adrien Meyer described it as “the most important early work by the artist to ever come to auction.” Nearly 20 bids flew across the room. Christie’s specialists Amelia Walker, Katharine Arnold, and Maria Los all competed for the work. Los ultimately secured the painting at a £27 million hammer bid. The final price reached £31.56 million ($41.79 million), surpassing the £25 million high estimate. The painting had previously been restituted to the heirs of Hedwig Lewenstein-Weyermann in 2023.
The mood shifted again toward the end of the second sale. At the 27th lot, auctioneer Meyer stepped away from the rostrum and Yu Ge Wang took over. Works by Cy Twombly, George Condo, Alberto Giacometti, and Lucian Freud all failed to find buyers. The crowd began to thin by 8:52 p.m.
Even a charitable cause struggled to lift the atmosphere. Igshaan Adams’s sculpture The certainty of being a rose (ii), made from beads, thread, and textile, fetched £96,000 ($127,000). The auctioneer noted that proceeds would benefit environmental charities. Nevertheless, the result set a new auction record for Adams.
Market Confidence Tempered by Widespread Guarantees
The second sale closed with an 85 percent sell-through rate by lot, well below the Simon collection’s 98 percent. Together, the two sales achieved a combined sell-through rate of 91 percent by lot and 96 percent by value. The 20th and 21st Century sale brought in £111.1 million ($147 million).
Philip Hoffman, chairman and founder of the Fine Art Group, told ARTnews before the sale that a handful of works in the Simon collection would race ahead while most others would sell with little competition. He also noted that buyers at Frieze Masters had been holding back funds in anticipation of the auction.
After the sales concluded, Hoffman described the combined results as a clear sign of a solid market. However, he urged caution when interpreting the totals. He pointed out that 29 of the 41 lots in the Simon sale carried third-party guarantees. As a result, much of the financial risk had already been managed before bidding even began.
“These auctions are staged, managed, and already pumped up to the max for the best guarantees they can get,” Hoffman told ARTnews.
For Hoffman, the evening’s results were encouraging but not yet conclusive. He said he was waiting for the sale of the Antonio Homem Sonnabend collection, estimated to bring more than $50 million and offered without guarantees, for a clearer reading of the market. Meanwhile, Christie’s heads into its New York sales, which begin November 17, with strong momentum and two works having sold for more than £25 million each.
