London’s October Auction Results Suggest the Market Is Playing It Safe

If Hong Kong’s September sales hinted at where art market money is going, London’s October auctions made it plain. Buyers are concentrating on established names, preferably ones with institutional backing. The other reliable draw is major single-owner collections, which sell as much on provenance and backstory as on the art itself. The week opened with Monsoon: The Peter Simon Collection Evening Sale, which brought in £107.5 million, the highest total for a single-owner collection ever achieved at Christie’s London. Peter Simon, the founder of British retailer Monsoon, assembled a collection ranging widely in style and period, reflecting a personal cultural trajectory and, in particular, his interest in craft, textile production, travel, color and abstraction.

Leading the sale was Francis Bacon’s highly anticipated Figure in Movement (1978), which fetched £17.2 million after several minutes of bidding, selling to a bidder in the room. Amid the ongoing rediscovery of overlooked women artists, a new record was set for Russian Constructivist Liubov Popova, whose work sold for £7.6 million against a low estimate of £1.8 million after eight minutes of bidding. Other top lots included a Joan Miró (£8.5 million) and Piet Mondrian’s iconic Composition A, with Double Line and Yellow (£9.71 million), while Hurvin Anderson’s Last House landed at £5.7 million against a £2-3 million estimate.

Most other lots landed within expectations, many safely secured by guarantees and the usual pre-sale agreements that shield today’s auction houses from most open-market casualties. Yet several contemporary names that have gained recognition in recent years beat their high estimates. The opening lot by Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera, estimated at £70,000-100,000, fetched £300,000, setting a new auction record for the artist and surpassing the previous benchmark of $355,600, achieved by Vese Vakandibata (They All Gave Me Strength) at Sotheby’s New York in 2023. In just a few years, Zvavahera has seen a meteoric rise, landing representation with Zwirner as well as institutional shows that validated the work and its market, including Kettle’s Yard, the Fruitmarket, Fondation Louis Vuitton, ICA Boston and the Fridericianum. Her work is also in the collections of institutions including Tate, Pérez Art Museum Miami and Zeitz MOCAA.

An intriguing, seemingly abstract painting by Peter Doig also performed well, reaching £832,000 with fees against a £300,000-600,000 estimate. It was followed by Elephants (2015) by Michael Armitage, which backed by a third-party guarantee, fetched £1.1 million against a £700,000 high estimate. His auction record was set in May 2025, when another, larger 2015 painting, Mpeketoni, sold for $2.4 million. These results follow a major show at Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi in Venice and an extensive solo exhibition at Zwirner last year. Here again is a contemporary artist with strong institutional support, with works in the collections of MoMA, Tate and the Met, among others.

The sale also set a record for Bridget Riley, whose hypnotic Streak 2 reached £5.2 million against a £3-5.5 million estimate. The work featured in Tate’s 2003 retrospective of the artist, as well as in shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney (traveling to City Gallery Wellington), the Aargauer Kunsthaus in Aarau, the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea and, most recently, the 2019 survey at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, which traveled to the Hayward Gallery in London. A new record was also set for a painting on board by Barbara Hepworth, which Simon acquired in 1996, at £537,600 against a £150,000-250,000 estimate.

The house’s combined 20/21 Evening Sales generated a total of £218.6 million, with the 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale achieving £111 million, led by Wassily Kandinsky’s 1907 masterpiece Das bunte Leben, which reached £31.6 million after almost six minutes of intense bidding. The opening lot, a red-to-orange Josef Albers, reached £588,800 against a £250,000-350,000 estimate, followed by a yellow piece that went even higher, closing at £742,400 against a £380,000-500,000 estimate.

Later in the sale, Piet Mondrian’s iconic primary-color Composition III (1920) fetched £25.2 million. Matching its high estimate, Calder’s Zigzag, a sculpture combining mobile and stabile, sold for £1.08 million, while a Paul Klee gouache reached £537,000.

Also surpassing their estimates were Magritte’s gouache Le seize septembre, which sold for £3.2 million against a £1.8 million high estimate, and David Hockney’s 1995 dog painting, which sold for £3.5 million against a £1.5-2.5 million estimate. The painting came from Hockney’s 1995 L.A. Louver show, “Some Very Large New Paintings with Twenty-Five Dogs Upstairs and Some Drawings of Friends.”

Among the unsold lots were Giacometti’s Buste d’homme sur socle, estimated at £900,000 – £1.2 million, a sculpture by Auguste Renoir offered later in the sale with a £1-1.5 million estimate and one by Jacques Lipchitz, estimated at £600,000-800,000.

Toward the end of the evening, Igshaan Adams’s The certainty of being a rose (ii) (2026) sold above estimate for £90,000, setting a new record for the institutionally backed contemporary artist. Proceeds will benefit Artists for Climate Action, a collaborative fundraising initiative of world-leading climate charities, the Gallery Climate Coalition and ClientEarth.

At Sotheby’s, a de Kooning leads but selective bidding prevails

Sotheby’s is having a record year in London, with total sales surpassing £1 billion following its October series. The 34-lot Contemporary Evening Auction on Oct. 15 achieved £47.6 million, bringing its year-to-date modern and contemporary total to £598 million, the highest at this point in the year since 2015. Yet even as the night brought notable successes, it also held some surprises, with momentum fading toward the end as several lots failed to sell or struggled to reach their low estimates. Ten lots were secured with guarantees.

Leading the sale was Willem de Kooning’s five-foot Untitled (1977), which hammered at £8.2 million (£9.8 million with fees), edging toward its high estimate and setting a new record for the artist at auction in Europe, surpassing the £6.06 million achieved for a de Kooning by Phillips London in 2023.

Sotheby’s auctioneer Tom Eddison opened the sale with three works on paper by Georg Baselitz, all from his celebrated 1965 Helden (Heroes) series and fresh to auction. The first two beat expectations, selling for £358,400 and £256,000 with fees. The third, Ohne Titel (Ein moderner Maler), failed to find a buyer. All three came from the Duerckheim Collection, whose major holdings Sotheby’s offered in a dedicated June 2011 auction that totaled £62 million. Later in the evening, Baselitz’s monumental Die Geißelung sold for £2.16 million to a telephone bidder represented by Sotheby’s head of Old Masters, Elisabeth Lobkowicz, reflecting the growing trend toward cross-category collecting. A few lots later, P.D. Idol (1964), one of only five canvases from Baselitz’s seminal Idol series, exceeded its £1-1.5 million estimate, fetching £2.35 million. These results come shortly after the artist’s death last month and as Thaddaeus Ropac opened a major exhibition of his early works during Frieze Week.

Buoyed by a particularly strong exhibition now on view at David Zwirner, Louis Fratino’s 2019 painting Kissing Couple approached its high estimate, selling for £320,000 with fees. Demand for Antony Gormley remained strong, following a series of major exhibitions in Asia that have fueled interest among collectors in the region. His Back IV, estimated at £600,000, fetched £537,600 with fees.

Albert Oehlen’s Schwindel, a rare painting of exceptional quality acquired directly from the artist in 1999 and passed down by descent to its current owner, sold for £1.6 million. According to Sotheby’s specialists, paintings from this series rank among the artist’s finest, with works from the same year in major collections including Fondation Louis Vuitton.

The sale also confirmed renewed momentum for Bridget Riley, with her 2012 painting Rose Shadow fetching nearly £1 million, though it fell short of its high estimate.

Since David Hockney’s death earlier this year, demand has continued to grow for his later digital drawings. His 10th-22nd June 2021, Water Lilies in the Pond with Pots of Flowers, featured in his memorable exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie, fetched £1.92 million, far exceeding its £650,000 estimate and setting a new auction record for his iPad works. Another Hockney, a rare Cubist-inspired portrait, just reached its high estimate, selling for £2.8 million. Held in the same private collection for more than 30 years, the painting depicts the celebrated art historian and critic Henry Geldzahler, a frequent sitter for Hockney, most famously in the 1969 double portrait Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott.

Works by Michael Andrews rarely appear at auction, making his 1966 Butterfly Fish particularly noteworthy. It arrived with an ambitious estimate of £80,000-120,000, the highest ever placed on a work on paper by the artist, and fetched a record £704,000, seven times the previous auction record for a work on paper by the London School painter, who may be less known than Freud or Bacon but appears to be enjoying renewed demand.

A dark abstraction on paper by Mark Rothko that hammered at its low estimate and achieved £3.8 million (just shy of $5 million) with fees set a new record. Created during the same period as the artist’s celebrated Rothko Chapel paintings, it was acquired by the consignor when it last came to market in 1992, selling for $264,000 at Christie’s New York.

A work from one of Gerhard Richter’s most coveted series, the Abstrakte Bilder, which account for 20 of the artist’s 25 highest auction prices, sold comfortably within estimate at £1.2 million. Another gray-toned Abstraktes Bild, fresh to the market and held in the same private collection in Japan since shortly after its creation, came up near the end of the evening, fetching £768,000 and well within estimate. But an entirely black triptych by Richter, Grauer Spiegel (Gray Mirror), failed to sell against its £700,000 – £1 million estimate.

Adrian Ghenie’s The Wall (2019) barely cleared its low estimate, selling for £640,000, though the result still ranks among the artist’s five highest auction prices in the past five years. Entirely fresh to the market, the work was acquired directly from the artist in 2020, a year after its inclusion in the landmark exhibition “Adrian Ghenie: The Battle Between Carnival and Feast” at Palazzo Cini in Venice.

The hype around Jadé Fadojutimi has cooled, with one of her large 2022 abstractions failing to sell despite its seemingly achievable £350,000-400,000 estimate. The sale closed with a horizontal bas-relief by Yayoi Kusama, which fetched £320,000, well below its £1 million estimate, despite renewed attention following the artist’s death in August.

Among the evening’s casualties, Lucian Freud’s Head of a Girl failed to sell against a rather ambitious £500,000-700,000 estimate. Later in the sale, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s 11pm, Thursday, estimated at £600,000-900,000, also went unsold. Among the withdrawn lots was Damien Hirst’s In Search of Truth, originally estimated at £1-1.5 million. Despite recent record results for Leon Kossoff, his work was also withdrawn, along with a Kiefer.

Phillips’s white-glove sale shows the strength of tight curation

On Oct. 15, Phillips’ Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale achieved a white-glove result across 20 lots, generating £14.8 million (up 44 percent from last year). The compact selection, pre-sale arrangements and the auction house’s priority bidding benefits all contributed to the session’s smooth execution.

Leading the sale was Gerhard Richter’s abstraction Mathis, from the collection of Marcel Brient, which fetched £4.7 million through a telephone bid handled by Phillips chairman Robert Manley. Painted in 1983 and exhibited the following year in Richter’s show at Galerie Liliane & Michel Durand-Dessert in Paris, the work was acquired by its present owner from Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot.

Among the other highlights was a museum-caliber Banksy making its auction debut, which sold for £1.25 million with fees to a telephone bidder also represented by Manley. Provocatively titled Keep Ou T, the 2019 work transforms a former E.U. arrivals gate from Heathrow Airport into a statement about borders, exclusion and freedom of movement in the aftermath of Brexit. A rat removes the letter “T” from “KEEP OUT,” turning the familiar warning into a subversive visual statement.

Another star lot, a still life by David Hockney, sold for £770,000 to a telephone bidder represented by Phillips specialist and head of sale Charlotte Raybould. Originally sold by Nishimura Gallery in Tokyo, the work remained in a Japanese collection for some time before the consignor acquired it.

Opening the auction and setting the pace from the start was a compelling painting by Eva Helene Pade. Her Yellow Nights fetched £167,700, far exceeding its £30,000-50,000 estimate and setting a new auction record for the young Danish artist. The result surpassed the previous benchmark set last March at Christie’s Hong Kong, when Untitled (2022) sold for about HKD1 million.

A work by Joseph Yaeger, another rising contemporary artist whose works remain particularly scarce on the primary market, achieved nearly five times its estimate; Once, Always fetched £645,000. The Cecily Brown that followed sold for £361,000, around its high estimate. Subsequent lots also performed within expectations, including a work by Nicolas Party at £335,400 and a yellow composition by Josef Albers at £567,600.

With the Richter result providing another major boost, the auction moved at a sustained pace, supported by steady bidding. Another Hockney painting, Red Leather Chair, sold below its high estimate for £645,000, while his drawing Portrait of Peter Langan and Jean-Marc Moussis fetched £232,200, and Gate Deck reached its high estimate at £154,800. All three works were guaranteed.

On the modern side, works by Marc Chagall and Salvador Dalí reached their high estimates, selling for £516,000 and £645,000, respectively; both were backed by guarantees.

Particularly fascinating was Dalí’s early Mediterranean landscape El torrent de la Jorneta, included in the artist’s 1980 retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, which later traveled to the Reina Sofía in Madrid and to Tenerife Espacio de las Artes. The consignor had acquired the painting at Bonhams’ March 2018 Impressionist and Modern Art sale for £475,000.

Lively bidding also greeted an abstraction by Megan Rooney, first shown in her 2021 exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac, which soared to £245,100 against a £50,000-70,000 estimate. The result follows the artist’s auction record, set last June at Sotheby’s London, when a larger painting, The Living Sky (2025-26), fetched £307,200. Donated by Rooney through Thaddaeus Ropac to the Artists for Kettle’s Yard benefit auction, that work far exceeded its estimate and her previous benchmark of £22,860 for Two Dreams, One for Now, One for Later (2016), set at Phillips London in October 2024.

Also surpassing expectations was an immersive, blue-toned canvas by Ben Sledsens, which fetched £387,000 against a £150,000-200,000 estimate. Recent results point to sustained international demand for the Antwerp-based painter’s vivid, imaginary landscapes. His auction record was set at Christie’s London in June 2023, when Throwing Dice (2016) sold for £504,600, more than eight times its £60,000 low estimate. His latest solo exhibition recently closed at Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp.

More ambitious works, including James Turrell’s light portal Ein Feshkha and Maurizio Cattelan’s iconic tourist pigeons, also sold within estimate, at £490,200 and £212,850, respectively (the latter most likely to its guarantor). The final two lots similarly found buyers within expectations, with a monumental Anselm Kiefer achieving £296,700 and a black-and-white abstraction by Adam Pendleton selling for £232,200.

This sale in particular confirmed the resilience of demand for contemporary artists with established collector bases in specific markets or strong regional followings, as well as for names backed by institutional recognition. Meanwhile, the London October series as a whole validated the market’s increasingly selective nature and was a stark reminder that even established names can struggle without sufficient demand.

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