London's $168m Contemporary Auctions Reveal Mixed Market

The numbers are obviously down as the market recalibrates and sales move to other auction centers but the bidding showed surprising pockets of strength

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In This Issue

1. Lot Watch: Warhol’s 16 Jackies Seeks a $25 million bid at Christie’s; a small Magritte’s first L’empire des lumières; and Norman Lewis and Sam Gilliam at Swann’s OG African American art sale

2. What Happened in London: $168m in Contemporary art sold as the market continues to recalibrate while still showing surprising resilience

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Lot Watch

Sixteen Jackies Looking for a $25 million Bid at Christie’s

Andy Warhol made some 306 small images of Jacqueline Kennedy in mourning for his Death and Disaster series in the early 1960s. In many ways, it was the culmination of this body of work. The Jackies are made in eight different images and multiple colors. Warhol assembled different versions of the Jackies including a grid of 24 for his 1965 show in Philadelphia. Sixteen of those Jackies, including one in each color were sold to a collector. The work was eventually auctioned in 2006 for $15 million. The Macklowes bought the work. It was sold again in 2021 for $33 million. In the meantime, a grid of 16 Jackies was assembled by Peter Brant and sold in 2011 for $20 mllion. Christie’s announced this week that it would offer a grid of 16 Jackies—assembled by Warhol all in the same color and image—in the November sales with a $25 million estimate.

Magritte’s First L’Empire des Lumieres Offered for $25m at Christie’s

Christie’s has the first L’empire des lumières painting that Rene Magritte finished of the series of 17 paintings in different sizes and variations. The small work was originally owned by Nelson Rockefeller. It will be offered in November with a $25 million estimate.

Norman Lewis at Swann African American Art Sale

Swann’s African American art sale on Thursday features a Norman Lewis processional painting from 1959 called Mood Madness. Estimated at $600,000, the painting is one of Lewis’s nocturnal compositions. The auction also has one of Sam Gilliam’s drape paintings being sold by the estate of his friend Lou Stovall.

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What Happened in London

Over the last year, as global central banks raised interest rates to a 15-year high, the prevailing sense of the art market has been apprehensive anticipation. Buyers hoped to see markets turn in their favor, perhaps prematurely, while many sellers still believe their works are immune to the downward economic and political pressures. If we’re judging the market by London’s Frieze sales, it would appear that both views remain somewhat plausible. The market is contracting, especially at the top where roughly the same number of million-pound-by-estimate lots it made it to the auction block but the hammer prices for those lots were down from 2022 by 50%. At the same time, there were a number of lots that saw sustained bidding and new record prices for established artists (or works by well-established artists that set strong prices.)

To try to summarize the overall market mood: it is neither as bad as many would-be buyers are hoping nor as good as many would-be sellers blithely assumed. The market is picky and even quirky in unexpected ways.