NEW YORK — Though marred by a few pricey buy-ins that dented expectations, the Phillips evening auction of contemporary art on Monday made for a snappy opener to the week’s contemporary sales, realizing $68,015,750. The take compared decently to pre-sale expectations of $65.1-$97.4 million for the forty lots offered, including fees (though it trailed last November’s $79.9 million result for 29 lots sold).
Only five lots failed to sell, for a svelte buy-in rate of 12 percent by lot and 16 percent by value. Fourteen works made over a million dollars and of those, three sold for more than five million dollars. More impressively, five artist records were set.
Phillips skillfully tilled its niche market, with recently produced works by younger artists as like Lucien Smith’s “Hobbes, The Rain Man, and My Friend Barney/Under the Sycamore Tree” (2011), a huge oil on canvas that sold to New York dealer Alberto Mugrabi for a record $389,000 (est. $100,000-$150,000) and Nate Lowman’s Warholian take-off “Trash Landing Marilyn #12, 2011,” which sold to a telephone bidder for $725,000 (est. $400,000-$600,000). TheLondon dealer Gerard Faggionato was the underbidder.
In that same racy realm, Ron Pruitt’s chomping trio of Panda bears, “Chinese Buffet” (2011) brought a record $305,000 (est. $100-150,000), selling to the New York private dealer Neal Meltzer, and Jacob Kassay’s silver-hued and largely empty abstraction “Untitled” (2011) made a record $317,000.
The red-hot Columbian-born artist Oscar Murillo, meanwhile — this decade’s answer to Julian Schnanbel — continued a winning streak as his“Untitled” (2011), a graffiti-centric abstraction in oil stick, spray paint, enamel, and graphite on canvas sold to a telephone bidder for $293,000 (est. $100-150,000).
Further up the art-star food chain, Mark Grotjahn’s slickly patterned color burst abstraction, “Untitled (Orange Butterfly Green M 2003 G)” (2003), sold to dealer Andrew Fabricant of the New York/Chicago Richard Gray Gallery for $3,637,000 (est. $2 million-$3 million). The underbidder, the New York dealer Jack Tilton, quipped later, “I always stick to my bid,” meaning he wasn’t tempted to go any further. “Still,” he added, “it was a healthy sale.”
The Grotjahn was one of the half-dozen works bearing a third-party guarantee, meaning the lots would sell no matter what occurred in the salesroom, thanks to a variety of anonymous pre-selected bidders offering undisclosed minimum prices for the works in question.
Another member of that fraternity, John Currin’s smiling, reclining nude in oil, “Amanda” (2003), sold to Neal Meltzer $3,525,000 (est. $3 million-$4 million). The painting debuted at Currin’s 2003 solo show at the Sadie Coles HQ gallery in London.
And another guaranteed offering, Andy Warhol’s serial head-shot of Marilyn Monroe, “Nine Gold Marilyns (Reversal Series)” (1980), sold to the New York dealer Jose Mugrabi for $9,125,00 (est. $8 million-$12 million). Mugrabi was hard to miss, wearing a plain black baseball cap and bidding in the second row alongside his sons David and Alberto Mugrabi. The Warhol had last sold at Phillips de Pury & Company for $7,922,500 in November 2011.
Offered without financing or previous auction history, Jeff Koons’s polychrome wood sculpture, “Buster Keaton” (1988), catalogued as number one of an edition of three plus one artist proof, sold to the New York/London dealer David Zwirner for $4,421,000 (est. $4 million-$6 million). The work, from the artist’s now storied “Banality” series, is derived from a publicity still taken for Keaton’s 1923 silent comedy, “Our Hospitality”; it has the silent-movie star perched on a miniature pony and saluting. Another version sold at Art Basel this summer, when Eli Broad bought it for an undisclosed price in the five million dollar range from Gagosian Gallery.
Phillips’ daring cover lot, David Hammons’s sensational and beautifully illuminated glass backboard/chandelier, “Untitled” (2000), comprised of crystal, brass, frosted glass, light fixtures, hardware and steel, and described in the catalogue as unique from a series of three, sold to Zwirner for a record $8,005,000 (est. $5 million-$7 million). Another version of the large-scale chandelier is in the permanent collection of Francois Pinault’s public collection in Venice.
What made the offering daring was the bullishness of the estimate; the previous Hammons record at auction was just $2,266,500, set at Sotheby’s New York in November 2011 by an untitled 1996 sculpture comprised of African masks, mirror, and wire.
Connecticut collector Peter Brant was the underbidder. “It was a fabulous piece, but too much money for me,” Brant said as he exited the Park Avenue salesroom.
And the New York private dealer Philippe Segalot called the Hammons “a very desirable piece by a great artist.” Segalot had bought another Hammons work from 2000, also an “Untitled,” at Phillips back in 2001 for the then-record price of $409,500 for his client Pinault.
More familiar to the salesroom and the world at large, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s soda-bottle cap-festooned “Self-Portrait” (1985), executed in acrylic, oil stick, crown cork and bottle caps on wood relief, sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for $3,301,000 (est. $3 million-$5 million). It last sold at Phillips de Pury London in June 2011 as the top lot for £2,057,250 (about $3.3 million).
A riskier entry, Roy Lichtenstein’s “Woman with Peanuts” (1962), depicting a smiling server in uniform against an intense yellow background, sold to another anonymous telephone bidder for the evening’s top lot price of $10,505,000 (est. $10 million-$15 million). It had last been offered at auction at Christie’s New York in November 2003, when it went unsold against a $2.5 million-$3.5 million pre-sale estimate.
It sure looks like times and prices have changed.
There were other Pop Art offerings in the mix, including Andy Warhol’s menacing 16-by-20-inch “Gun” (1982), which went for $1,685,000 (est. $1.5 million-$2.5 million), and his early, diagrammatic “Dance Steps” (1962), a pencil on paper work that sold to Alberto Mugrabi for $1,445,000, (est. $1.2 million-$1.8 million). It carried a third party guarantee and had last sold at Sotheby’s New York in November 2007 for $825,000.
Ed Ruscha’s “Higher Standards/Lower Prices” (2007), a cinematic diptych featuring craggy and snow-capped mountain peaks, sold to Larry Gagoisan, the artist’s longtime dealer, for $2,405,000 (est. $1.5 million-$2.5 million). It had last sold at Phillips de Pury & Company in May 2010 for $1,426,500.
Phillips is not usually a salesroom for Abstract Expressionist masters, and indeed Mark Rothko’s late and brooding “Untitled (Black on Gray)” (1969-70) — a work that had been on loan from the seller to the Philadelphia Museum of Art — went unsold at an imaginary bid of $9 million (est. $10 million-$15 million). (Auctioneers are allowed to place bids on behalf of the consignor up to the reserve price placed on the lot, the minimum a seller is willing to let the work go for.) It had last been offered at Christie’s New York in November 2010, when it went unsold at the same estimate. You can't blame Phillips or the spurned seller for trying.
David Hockney’s “The Eighteenth V.N. Painting” (1992) sold to the London dealer Offer Waterman for $869,000 (est. $450,000-$550,000). The New York art advisor Mary Hoeveler was the underbidder.
“It was a very reasonable price,” opined Waterman as he exited the salesroom.
Another classic offering, Kazuo Shirago’s Ab-Ex style, made-in-Japan painting “Keishizoku” (1961), sold for a record $3,973,000 (est. $2 million-$3 million).
Neal Meltzer, seated in the front row of the poorly sighted salesroom, was the underbidder.
Other offerings by younger, still living, mid-career art stars included Wade Guyton’s “Untitled” (2006), an Epson UltraChrome Inkjet on linen painting, which realized $725,000 (est. $600,000-$800,000.)
“Overall,” said Michael McGinnis, Phillips’s CEO and world-wide head of contemporary art, “it was a very competitive atmosphere.”
Phillips made an 11th-hour decision to move its auction from Thursday to Monday, ahead of the auction duopoly Christie’s and Sotheby’s, and it was clearly the right one.
“It was a last minute decision to get people while they’re fresh and probably will be our pattern going forward,” McGinnis said.
The evening action resumes at Christie’s on Tuesday with enormous pre-sale expectations pegged in the region of $500 million.
