Best auction results in H1 2012

Friday is Top day! Every alternate Friday, Artprice posts a theme-based auction ranking. This week: the top ten auctions since January 2012.

In the first half of 2012, the very high-end market dazzled with 44 bids over $10m around the world. Number one in this ranking is Edvard MUNCH, the most expensive artist in the world since a version of his Scream sold at auction for $107m. In fact, this is the only hammer price over $100m every recorded in art auction history (link to the AMI Munch). Only rumours of high-level private sales claim to have surpassed Munch… Remember: in 2011, one of the five versions of Joueurs de cartes by Paul CÉZANNE was said to have been bought by the Qatari royal family for €250m, even though the artist had “only” peaked at €55m in auction rooms in the last decade (Rideau, cruchon et compotier, Sotheby’s New York, 10 May 1999).
The top ten hammer price rankings go to six modern (artists born between 1860 and 1919) works by Edvard Munch, Mark ROTHKO, LI Keran, Joan MIRO and two by Francis BACON. Two pop artists, Roy LICHTENSTEIN and Andy WARHOL, come in at 4th (tied with Francis Bacon at $40m) and 5th respectively, while the Frenchman Yves KLEIN makes it a double with two hammer prices over $32m!

Ninety percent of auction sales were recorded between May and June, with the most astonishing of those being the one orchestrated by Sotheby’s New York on 9 May, during which Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, two of the most expensive post-war artists in the market, together with Francis Bacon generated no less than $113m with only three artworks!

Top 10 : the ten best auction results in the first half of 2012

New Records in 2012

In the first half of 2012, many new records were established: Edvard Munch’s record of course, but also the top price set by Mark Rothko whose colourful fields in Orange, Red, Yellow achieved $77,5m compared to the $35-$45m estimate range! This vibrant, dazzling painting has made Rothko the highest priced artist from the post-war period and Rothko has now overtaken Francis Bacon, whose top price remains $77m since his Triptych was sold at Sotheby’s (15 May 2008). Rothko again surprised everyone as his White Center had already reached a spectacular new record of $65m in May 2007, smashing his previous record by $45m (Homage to Matisse, sold for $20m on 16 May 2007 at Christie’s)!
Another record pushed up valuations for Li Keran, one of the ten top-performing Chinese artists at auction since 2010. Li Keran, who modernized traditional Chinese painting by imbuing it with selected Western overtones, has now achieved $40.34m with Mountain in red, sold at Poly International in Beijing on 8 May – the only hammer price in this Top 10 achieved in China. A record price also for Roy Lichtenstein, with $40m (excluding fees) paid out for Sleeping girl, and for the Spanish surrealist Joan Miró who surpassed his previous record by $10m (Painting Poem sold for $23.68m on 7 February 2012 at Christie’s London) and has now largely outstripped Salvador DALI (whose record stands at $19.3m for his Portrait de Paul Eluard, sold on 10 February 2011 at Sotheby’s London). Finally we have Yves Klein, the most metaphysical of the French Nouveau Réalisme artists, who managed two hammer prices over $32m, crushing his previous record by more than $11m!

This year, the top bids have been particularly spectacular. Historic prices for these leading artists may have little power in stemming the determination to pay premium prices for the 20th century’s absolute masterpieces.
In this Top 10, only two artists did not post new records, but it must be said that Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon paintings have already peaked at $64m and $77m respectively!