Bold brushstrokes and vibrant textures define Willem de Kooning’s Untitled abstraction, sold during the Sotheby’s London Contemporary Art Auction. Image: Sotheby’s
Explore Sotheby’s London auction results, including prices for Willem de Kooning, Gerhard Richter and Mark Rothko during Frieze Week.
BY KAZEEM ADELEKE, ARTCENTRON
LONDON — Sotheby’s London contemporary art auction generated £45.9 million ($61 million) on October 15, with Willem de Kooning’s Untitled (1977) leading the evening at £9.8 million ($12.9 million). The sale produced a notable result for the American abstract expressionist, yet bidding across the room pointed to a more cautious market. Several prominent works failed to sell, while a small group of paintings and drawings attracted competition well beyond expectations.
The auction took place during London’s Frieze Week, when international collectors, galleries, and art professionals converge on the British capital. Although the atmosphere around the fair remained active, Sotheby’s evening sale offered a more complicated picture of demand in the secondary art market.
The sale brought in £36.9 million at hammer, below its £41.7 million low estimate. Including fees, the total reached £45.9 million. The result fell slightly short of the £47.6 million recorded at the equivalent sale a year earlier.
Sotheby’s London Contemporary Art Auction Results
The evening offered 37 works in the original catalogue, although three lots were withdrawn before bidding. The resulting sale comprised 34 lots. Six works went unsold, leaving 28 successful sales and a sell-through rate of approximately 82 percent.
The difference between the hammer total and the published sale total is important. The £36.9 million hammer figure represents the winning bids before the auction house’s applicable buyer’s fees. The £45.9 million result includes those fees. Presale estimates generally exclude the buyer’s premium, so comparing estimates with final prices requires care.
Ten of the 34 lots carried guarantees, a mechanism that can provide sellers with a minimum return while giving auction houses additional certainty over important consignments. Guarantees do not ensure that bidding will exceed an estimate, however, and the evening’s results showed how selective buyers remained.
The sale’s strongest works attracted substantial interest, but the broader performance was less convincing. Some paintings sold within their estimates, others fell short, and several received no successful bid. The pattern suggests that buyers were prepared to compete for particular works without committing equally across the catalogue.
Willem de Kooning Leads With a £9.8 Million Painting
The leading lot was Willem de Kooning’s Untitled (1977), an abstract painting estimated at £8 million to £12 million. The work sold for £9.8 million, including fees, after reaching a hammer price of £8.2 million.
The result placed the painting within its presale estimate and established a European auction high for de Kooning, according to the auction house. The painting had previously appeared at Sotheby’s New York in 2015, when it sold for $6.1 million.
De Kooning’s performance provided the evening’s clearest headline result. Yet one successful top lot cannot, by itself, establish that the wider market is strengthening. The painting benefited from its position among the sale’s most important works, while other consignments encountered resistance.
The distinction matters for collectors assessing auction prices. A high result can reflect the quality, condition, provenance, and rarity of a particular work, as well as competition between bidders. It does not automatically indicate that comparable works by the same artist will achieve similar prices.
Gerhard Richter and Mark Rothko Deliver Mixed Results
Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (1992) was the second-highest lot, selling for £6.7 million, including fees, against an estimate of £6 million to £8 million. Its hammer price was £5.4 million.
The painting had previously sold at Christie’s London in 2011 for £3.6 million, equivalent to approximately $5.7 million at the time. That history provides a useful comparison, although the figures should not be treated as a direct measure of investment performance without accounting for transaction costs, currency movements, and the circumstances of each sale.
Richter’s work also featured in the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s 2025–26 exhibition, adding recent institutional context to its history. For buyers, exhibition records and provenance can inform an artwork’s significance, but neither guarantees a particular auction outcome.
Mark Rothko’s Untitled (1969) followed with a final price of approximately £3.8 million, including fees. The work had an estimate of £3 million to £4 million and reached the low estimate at hammer.
Its previous sale offers a striking historical contrast. The consignor acquired the painting at Christie’s New York in 1992 for $264,000. The later result illustrates the potential for substantial changes in an artwork’s nominal auction value over time. It does not, on its own, establish the owner’s net return.
The results for Richter and Rothko show why headline prices need context. Both artists attracted multimillion-pound bids, but the final amounts did not uniformly exceed expectations.
Michael Andrews and David Hockney Produce Standout Results
Michael Andrews delivered one of the evening’s strongest performances with Butterfly Fish (1978). The work on paper had a high estimate of £120,000 but reached a hammer price of £550,000 after an extended bidding contest. Including fees, it sold for £704,000.
The result established an auction record for Andrews’s work on paper. It also demonstrated how limited supply can influence bidding. Sotheby’s contemporary art department head Ottilie Windsor said that collectors had historically acquired many of Andrews’s paintings as he produced them. Those owners have often retained their works, leaving relatively few available on the market.
Andrews is less widely recognized by the general public than some of his School of London contemporaries, including Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. His result suggests that a relatively scarce work can attract considerable attention when it comes to auction, particularly when collectors have few opportunities to acquire comparable examples.
Sotheby’s London Contemporary Art Auction
David Hockney also generated competition. His Henry Reading (1985), a work inspired by curator Henry Geldzahler, sold above its high estimate. More striking was an iPad drawing that reached approximately £1.9 million, including fees, setting an auction record for Hockney’s work in the medium.
The drawing’s result highlights the continued relevance of digital art within the market for established artists. Hockney’s use of an iPad extends his longstanding interest in image-making into a different medium, while the auction price demonstrates that collectors may value digital works when authorship, provenance, and the nature of the object are clearly established.
For further context on Hockney’s auction history, see ARTCENTRON’s coverage of a David Hockney painting that dominated Sotheby’s contemporary art sale.
Younger Artists Face Uneven Demand
The auction delivered mixed outcomes for younger and mid-career artists. Louis Fratino’s Kissing Couple (2019) sold for £320,000, within its estimate. Adrian Ghenie’s The Wall (2019) achieved £640,000, also within its estimate.
Those results contrasted with the performance of works by Jadé Fadojutimi and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, both of which went unsold. Yayoi Kusama’s I Who Was Awestruck at the Shape of the Secret I Found in the Cosmos (2021) sold for approximately £320,000, well below its presale estimate of £1 million to £1.5 million.
These outcomes should not be read as a definitive verdict on the artists’ wider markets. An unsold lot may reflect a mismatch between the seller’s reserve, the estimate, and buyers’ willingness to bid at that particular moment. The price of a single work also depends on factors such as scale, subject, condition, provenance, and recent exhibition history.
Nevertheless, the contrast reinforces a central feature of the evening: demand was uneven. Recognizable names and compelling individual works could still attract serious bidding, while other consignments struggled to find buyers at their expected levels.
What the Sale Says About the Contemporary Art Market
The Sotheby’s London contemporary art auction took place against a backdrop of mixed signals. London’s Frieze Week brought international attention to the city, and some dealers reported strong activity at the fair. The auction, however, showed that energy in the gallery market does not necessarily translate into uniform demand for works offered on the secondary market.
Art industry watchers responding to the sales described the art market as cautious, observing that many lots performed below expectations or near the lower end of their estimates. This assessment aligns with the sale’s combination of a strong leading lot, several notable successes, and six unsold works.
The distinction between primary and secondary markets is relevant here. Gallery sales involve works sold through dealers, often directly from artists or their representatives. Auction sales typically involve existing works being resold by collectors or other owners. The two markets interact, but their results can differ because buyers face different choices, pricing structures, and expectations.
Earlier auction coverage offers useful historical context. ARTCENTRON examined a much stronger Sotheby’s contemporary sale in its report on Mark Rothko leading a Sotheby’s contemporary art auction. That sale produced a substantially different result, illustrating how performance varies with the works offered, prevailing demand, and the composition of a particular catalogue.
The broader lesson is not that the contemporary art market has stopped functioning. Rather, the latest results point to a market in which buyers appear selective about what they acquire and how much they are willing to pay. The most desirable works can still command substantial prices, while other pieces may fail to meet expectations.
For sellers, the implications are practical. Estimates must reflect current demand, and a work’s significance needs to be supported by its condition, provenance, exhibition history, and market comparables. For buyers, the spread between strong and weak results offers a reminder that artist reputation alone does not determine price.
Sotheby’s evening sale therefore delivered two messages. De Kooning, Hockney, and Andrews produced notable results, confirming that competition remains for certain works. Yet the overall total, the unsold lots, and the number of results below estimate point to continued selectivity.
During Frieze Week, the London art market remained active. The auction showed, however, that activity and confidence are not the same thing.