Summer 2023

While it feels the March sales have only just concluded, summer auctions for London’s 20^th and 21^st Century art market are in full swing. Major sales of Modern British art at Sotheby’s and Bonhams took place at the end of June, the same week as this year’s inaugural replacement of Masterpiece, The Treasure House Fair which Portland Gallery took part in along with over 50 other trade participants.

 

Bonhams’ Modern British & Irish Art sale consisted of 69 lots of painting and sculpture, totalling £2,257,000. While a selection of works did excel to achieve notable prices, most works hammered towards mid-estimate indicating reserved competition between bidders. Highlights included Christopher Wood’s 1928 Spring Flowers in a Jug (£95,650) and one of Ivon Hitchens’ last paintings, Tree, Sky & Ragwort (Giant Oak Series), which made over twice its low pre-sale estimate (£82,950): one of the stronger results for the artist of late. Competition for Eliot Hodgkin’s paintings showed no sign of slowing as two works, Robert Melville’s Picture (estimate £7,000-10,000) and Irises (estimate £12,000-18,000) both sold above £45,000. At Sotheby’s, Hodgkin’s still life oil also went beyond its £7,000-10,000 estimate. The top seller for Bonhams was John Craxton’s large Grecian Summer Triptych (Boy on Wall, Girl on the Seashore, Goat and Tree) making a new artist world record (£343,300). By contrast, less commercial examples by L.S. Lowry and Sir William Nicholson went unsold with estimates each over £100,000.

 

Compared to Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary auction, featuring a major 60s painting by Frank Auerbach and large-scale Barbara Hepworth bronze, the selection within their dedicated Modern British Art sale felt lacking in principal works. Walter Sickert’s confronting oil Bonne Fille owned by the Beverbrook Art Gallery in Canada performed surprisingly well, selling over five times its low estimate (£30,000-50,000) yet the sale’s lead painting, Environment for Two Objects by Paul Nash did not find a buyer at an estimate of £400,000-600,000. In a similar vein to Bonham’s, an overall lack of deeper bidding resulted in many works selling towards the mid or lower end of their pre-sale estimates. Similarly at Lyon and Turnbull, their Scottish Paintings sale demonstrated stable interest in the Colourists as Cadell’s striking Still Life with Tulips, sold over three times it’s low estimate (£400,200). Eleven other works by Cadell, Hunter, Fergusson and Peploe sold within estimate to private collectors but this result suggests that buyers are still increasingly selective and only willing to compete strongly to acquire top examples.

 

A selection of works within Robin and Rupert Hambro’s collection at Christie’s further establishes this buyer trend. Compared to works by the same names going unsold at Bonhams and Sotheby’s, Glynn Philpot’s Seated Model in the Studio (Henry Thomas) achieved the seventh highest result for the artist (£189,000) while Emily Young’s monumental Speleotham Onyx Time Boy made a new world record (£478,800). Once again, it seems that these major works are becoming more competitive to acquire. With Sotheby’s Modern British team due to become even smaller in the coming months there could be a challenge of maintaining both the standard and volume of consignments against direct competitors later in the year.

 

N.B: All results listed include buyer’s premium.

5 Jul 2023