London has not experienced an October quite like this in years, though the recent Frieze Week marquee sales painted a nuanced picture of an art market that is far from uniform. Across the major houses—Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips—the combined turnover for the evening sales surged by 63.4 percent compared to the previous year, marking the most robust autumn season of the 2020s. Yet, beneath this headline figure lies a significant disparity in performance. Christie’s dominated the week, capturing nearly four out of every five pounds spent, securing its largest market share of the decade. Conversely, Sotheby’s, while holding its own with a curated selection of blue-chip works, saw its results pale in comparison, managing less than a quarter of the total generated by its rival.
The divergence was most apparent on October 14, when Christie’s hosted two powerhouse evening sales. Centered on the prestigious Peter Simon collection and a high-profile restituted Kandinsky, these auctions generated a staggering £218.6 million ($287.5 million). The following night, as Sotheby’s took the rostrum on New Bond Street, the atmosphere felt markedly different. The house struggled to replicate the momentum seen across town, with its evening auction yielding a total that underscored the selective nature of current buyer appetites.
The Miraculous Year of Willem de Kooning
At the heart of the Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction on October 15 was Willem de Kooning’s Untitled (1977). The canvas, a definitive piece from what art critic David Sylvester famously dubbed the "annus mirabilis" of the artist’s career, sold for £9.8 million ($12.9 million). This result set a new benchmark for de Kooning at auction in Europe. Despite this record, the sale of the painting—which coincided with the Rijksmuseum’s significant retrospective, Willem de Kooning at Work—was viewed by some market observers as a relatively modest top lot when compared to the broader market landscape. Earlier that week, Kandinsky’s 1907 masterpiece, Das bunte Leben (The Colorful Life), had commanded more than three times the price at Christie’s.
Sotheby’s, which had catalogued 37 lots for its evening sale with a presale estimate of £41.7 to 58.6 million ($55.2 to 77.7 million), ultimately realized a total of £46.0 million ($61.0 million). The event was marked by a series of notable withdrawals, including works by heavyweights such as Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, and Leon Kossoff. Of the 34 lots that proceeded to the block, 28 found buyers, resulting in a sell-through rate of 82.4 percent. However, at the hammer, the total sat at just £36.9 million ($48.9 million), falling below the low estimate even after accounting for the withdrawn pieces. Compared to the previous October, turnover at the house slipped by 3.3 percent, signaling a shift toward a more cautious environment. The current performance places the house closer to its 2024 low of £37.6 million ($49.1 million) than the more prosperous heights of October 2022, when it realized £85.7 million ($98.7 million).
Tom Eddison, co-head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s London, steered the bidding for the de Kooning, opening at £7 million ($9.3 million) and closing at £8.2 million ($10.9 million). While the price was a clear victory for the consignor—fetching two and a half times its 2015 price at Sotheby’s New York—it nonetheless stood as the house’s lowest-priced Frieze Week top lot since 2023, when Francis Bacon’s Study for a Portrait (1979) sold for £4.3 million ($5.3 million).
Records on iPad and Paper
Beyond the de Kooning, the market appetite remained tethered to established, blue-chip names. Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (1992), a work previously showcased at Documenta IX and the Fondation Louis Vuitton, realized £6.7 million ($8.9 million). This represented an 86 percent increase over the £3.6 million ($5.7 million) the consignor paid for the work at Christie’s London in 2011. Similarly, Mark Rothko’s Untitled (1969), a late-career work on paper, saw spirited competition, eventually going to an online bidder for £3.8 million ($5.0 million), a significant climb from its last sale at Christie’s New York in 1992 for $264,000.
Other stalwarts, including David Hockney and Georg Baselitz, provided stability. Hockney’s collage Henry Reading (1985) achieved £2.8 million ($3.7 million), while Baselitz’s P.D. Idol (1964) reached £2.4 million ($3.2 million), both comfortably exceeding their high estimates.
Perhaps the most energetic bidding occurred for works that pushed the boundaries of traditional media. Hockney’s 10th – 22nd June 2021, Water Lilies in the Pond with Pots of Flowers, a series of six iPad paintings printed in an edition of 25, reached £1.9 million ($2.5 million). This result was nearly triple its high estimate and established a new price record for one of the artist’s digital-to-physical works. Similarly, Michael Andrews’ Butterfly Fish (1978)—a small-scale acrylic on paper—surged past its estimate of £80,000–120,000 to fetch £704,000 ($933,151), setting a record for a work on paper by the British painter.
However, the "younger" end of the market faced a reality check. Several contemporary artists who have been darlings of the auction circuit in recent years struggled to find traction. Works by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Jadé Fadojutimi failed to sell, and a major Banksy, Grannies (2006), was bought in against a high estimate of £2 million ($2.7 million), serving as a reminder that even high-profile contemporary names are not immune to shifting collector sentiment.
Modern British and the Broader Picture
The remainder of the week did little to deviate from the established narrative. Sotheby’s Modern British & Irish evening sale on October 14 generated £8.9 million ($11.7 million). Across its five sales held between October 14 and 16, the house realized £68.0 million ($90.1 million) in London. This brings the total for the house’s Modern and Contemporary category in the city this year to £598 million ($792.7 million), the strongest performance at this point in the year in over a decade. Yet, it is critical to note that nearly half of that total was secured in a single event: the June sale of the collection of British businessman Joe Lewis, which brought in £296.3 million ($392.6 million), led by Modigliani’s Nu assis au collier (1917–18) at £48.2 million ($63.9 million).
Young Artists Assist Rebound at Phillips
Phillips, meanwhile, found its own path to success during its Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Mayfair on October 15. The house reported a clean sweep: all 20 lots offered found buyers, generating £14.8 million ($19.7 million), an increase of 43.6 percent over the previous October. The top lot was Gerhard Richter’s Mathis (1983), which achieved £5.8 million ($7.7 million), followed by a Banksy, Keep Ou T (2019), at £1.6 million ($2.1 million).
Crucially, the evening was defined by record-breaking results for younger artists. Joseph Yaeger’s Once, always (2023) sold for £645,000 ($854,947)—more than three and a half times its high estimate—and Eva Helene Pade’s Yellow Nights (2020) fetched £167,700 ($222,286), far outperforming its modest £30,000 to 50,000 estimate.
As the auction season progresses, the focus now shifts to Paris. Sotheby’s is set to host La Collection Schlumberger. Le Temps retrouvé on October 22, followed by Surrealism and Its Legacy and Modernités on October 23. These sales will unfold against a backdrop of social volatility in the French capital, and the market will be watching closely to see how collectors respond, providing a vital barometer for the health of the art trade ahead of the high-stakes November marquee sales in New York.
