Sotheby’s London set a new European sales record at their evening Contemporary Art Auction on Wednesday 1 July, reaching an overall total of just over £130 million.
The auction was dominated by eight works by Warhol, whose 1962 hand-painted One Dollar Bill (Silver Certificate), 1962, fetched 20.9 million, exceeding its top estimate of £18 million. However, the auction’s most coveted work, Francis Bacon’s Study for a Pope I, 1961, (estimated at £25–35 million) went unsold after bids failed to reach the reserve price.
Here are the top 10 sales of the evening:
1. Andy Warhol, One Dollar Bill (Silver Certificate), casein and pencil on linen, 1962, £20,869,000
2. Francis Bacon, Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, 1975, £15,269,000
3. Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, in three parts, 1980, £14,709,000
4. Gerhard Richter, A B, Brick Tower, oil on canvas, 1987, £14,149,000
5. Andy Warhol, Dollar Signs, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, 1981, £6,925,000
6. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Orange Sports Figure, acrylic, oilstick and spray paint on canvas, 1982, £5,637,000
7. Yves Klein, Untitled Blue Monochrome, (IKB 239), dry pigment and synthetic resin on canvas laid down on panel, 1959, £5,525,000
8. Andy Warhol, Dollar Sign, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, 1981, £4,685,000
9. Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, Attese, waterpaint on canvas, 1964, £4,405,000
10. David Hockney, Arranged Felled Trees, oil on canvas, 2008, £3,397,000
2 July 2015.
