Pierre Bonnard 1923 "Terrasse à Vernon" sold for $11.6 million at Christie's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views, Contributor

Pierre Bonnard’s 1923 sun-dappled Terrasse à Vernon sold for $11.6 million at Christie’s in London last night, an auction record for the artist. Bloomberg identified the buyer as Russian, in a report here.

The sunny, bucolic landscape is one of only three works that Bonnard choose to present at the 1923 Salon d’Automne. It portrays the waterfront vista from Bonnard’s South of France home.

The evening’s biggest failure was the projected top lot, Paul Gauguin’s sunflower still-life tribute to Vincent van Gogh. The 1901 painting, Nature morte a L’Esperance was estimated to sell for £ 7 – 10 million and drew no bids, according to salesroom reports.

The works were offered during Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale tallying $136.3 million, with a 79 percent sell-through rate on 76 lots. A portion of the evening was devoted to Surrealist art, totaling realized $36.9 million. The Art of the Surreal, has been featured since 2001.

Pretty reigned supreme. Andre Derain’s Bateaux à Collioure (1905) sold for $9.4 million. Edgar Degas’ Danseuses jupes jaunes (Deux danseuses en jaune) sold for…

"Gavel" by Andrew Scott, at Ohio Judicial Center, via Flickr

Christie’s has released its 2010 global sales figures, with the total rising 53% over 2009, underscoring a steep market recovery, at least in the top-tier auction realm.

(Sotheby’s has not yet released 2010 figures, but auctions tallied $4.3 billion).

As governments around the globe grapple with budget shortfalls, the auction house clientele, drawn from the world’s wealthiest, appear to be parking money in art.

The firm sold £3.3 billion ($5 billion), the highest in Christie’s 245-year history.

Here are some figures released by the UK-based privately held house:

-Private sales tallied $572.4 million, up 39% over 2009 (they now account for 11.4% of total sales)

-606 works sold at auction for more than $1 million

-Company wide average sell-through rate equaled 79.4%, same as 2009

-New client paddle registration rose 22.7 percent over 2009

-By region: US leads with $2 billion in sales, Europe and UK follow with $1.7 billion, and Hong Kong and Dubai follow with $772.9 million.

-Top international category was Impressionist and modern art with sales of $1.2 billion

-Number two international category was postwar and contemporary art with $934.1 million

- On-line sales tallied $114.4 million,…

Andy Warhol's 1972 "Mao" screenprint, sold for $302,500. Photo: Christie's Images LTD 2010

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views, Contributor

A two-day auction from the estate of actor Dennis Hopper raised $3.4 million at Christie’s in New York this week.

A 1972 blue and green Warhol print of Mao Zedong was the top lot, fetching ten times the presale estimate.

The portrait — from an edition of 250, plus 50 artist’s proofs — sold for a whopping $302,500, crushing the $30,000 presale high estimate. The work, which included a pair of Hopper inflicted bullet holes, was acquired by investment banker Amed Khan, according to salesroom reports.

The sales raised the the tally of Hopper’s estate to $14.7 million. The priciest material was sold last November, including a 1987 Basquiat fetching $5.8 million. (Preview of that sale here).

The events came with a touch of drama as Christie’s yanked 32 items following a court order in connection with Hopper’s estranged wife. (Hopper was in the process of divorcing 42-year-old Victoria Duffy Hopper, his fifth wife, when he died in May at the age of 74.)

The offerings featured nearly 250 objects from Hopper’s Venice Beach pad, including works by Bruce…

Christie’s Americas president Marc Porter stopped by Bloomberg News for a four minute chat about the big ticket 2010 auctions.

What’s in store for 2011? “It’s too early to tell,” Porter tells Bloomberg’s interviewers.

Watch the video here.

Beatriz Milhazes' 1993-1994 "Machina," (est. $200-$300,000) sold for $722,500 at Christie's. Photo: Courtesy Christie's Images Ltd. 2010

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

The Latin American art market’s pudgy Colombian sweetheart, Fernando Botero, led last night’s sale at Christie’s. His portly bullfighter family fetched $1.7 million, above the high $1.5 million estimate. The work sold to an anonymous phone bidder.

The sale totaled $18.7 million, with a lackluster 73 percent of lots finding buyer. Christie’s is developing a specialty in the marathon evening auction, and last night was no different: 84 lots were on offer. Buyers gravitated to market stalwarts like Botero, Op Art, and modern, geometric abstract works.

The night before, Sotheby’s evening Latin sale made $14.8 million, bringing the week’s two-sale total to $33.5 million, less than hedge funder Steve Cohen paid for his Warhol Coke bottle during the contemporary sales the week prior, and well under the projected $50 million high estimate.

A number of living artists fared well, including Brazilian painters Beatriz Milhazes and Adriana Varejao.

The second half of the evening generated the most excitement, with works from the 1960s and 1970s  fetching some of their highest auction prices.

Argentinian kinetic artist Julio Le Parc achieved an auction record $506,500 for…

Wifredo Lam's 1970 "Les Abalochas Dansent Pour Dhambala, dieu l’unité," est. $1.75M-$2.25M at Sotheby's. Photo: Courtesy Sotheby's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Christie’s and Sotheby’s Latin American art sales this week are slated to tally over $50 million. There is the usual array of Botero fatties (19 in the evening sales!), plus rare Surrealist canvases, Colonial portraiture and kinetic and other optical teasers from the 1960s and 1970s. Sales rev up tonight at Sotheby’s.

New York’s Latin American auction revenues have increased over the past five years. Sotheby’s day and evening sales are projected to total up to $27 million for 261 lots, up from $15.5 million in Nov. 2005. Christie’s may see as much as $26 million realized from sales in the coming days, up from $11.5 million total in 2005.

The action commences tonight at Sotheby’s, with a collection of works from an Aspen collector, tagged to sell for up to $3.8 million.

The sale’s projected priciest work is Cuban Surrealist Wifredo Lam’s jumpy Las Abalochas dansent pour Dhambala, Dieu de L’Unite (1970), tagged to fetch $1.75 million to $2.25 million, which if achieved, would set a new auction record for the artist. (Lam’s current auction record – $1.4 million for…

Willem de Kooning's 1958 "Composition III, " oil on paper on masonite, (Est. $600-800K) Sold for $986,000 at Sotheby's. © Photo: Sotheby's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

The week’s trio of contemporary art day sales totaled $128 million.

Tuesday’s sale at Phillips de Pury & Co. was no Carte Blanche Philippe Segalot affair, instead totaling $6.1 million, under the $7.1 million to $10.1 million estimate.

More revealing: just 64 percent of the 354 lots were sold. The sale was larger than a year ago, when 263 lots which fetched $4.8 million.

Phillips set auction records for seven artists – though for some artists, like the charismatic Work of Art champ Abdi Farah, the record marks their first time at auction.

Sotheby’s came next, tallying $48.9 million, with eighty percent of 344 lots finding buyers, within the pre-sale $40 million to $57 million projected total. This was in line with 2009 results which made $44.1 million.

The top lot belonged to AbEx standby, Willem de Kooning: his 1958 Composition III fetched $986,500, above the $600,000 to $800,000 estimate.

Christie’s consignments were led by a spattering of estates offerings, including works from the collections of Max Palevsky and Dennis Hopper. A combined 391 lots sold in the morning and afternoon…

Roy Lichtenstein's record busting "Ohhh...Alright..." fetched $42.6M at Christie's from seller Steve Wynn

Bloomberg story here.

Roy Lichtenstein’s 1964 painting of a pouting redhead sold for an artist record $42.6 million last night at Christie’s International in New York, as buyers stuck with 1960s pop art to sustain a market recovery.

Lichtenstein’s Ohhh…Alright… soared past his previous auction peak of $16.3 million, to help the closely held auctioneer reach $272.9 million in sales for the evening, its biggest total in the category since May 2008 and nearly four times last year’s result. The tally brings the sum for the three-night autumn series of postwar art auctions, including sales by rivals Phillips de Pury & Co. and Sotheby’s, to $632 million, almost triple the $216 million a year ago.

“The patient has made a full recovery,” said New York art adviser Stefano Basilico. “Not that we are back to 2007, to those crazy levels but we are back to healthy, good shape.”

The two-hour, 75-lot sale left collectors complaining about the long evening, but that didn’t hurt results as 93 percent of lots found buyers. Auction records tumbled for six artists, including abstract painter Mark Grotjahn,…

Sotheby's Tobias Meyer with Warhol Coke bottle, (est. $20M-$25M). © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

The fall auction previews opened last week at  Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Warhol was ubiquitous. Early browsers included dealer Nicholas Acquavella, art banker Andy Augenblick, collector Ellen Stern and Yale University Art Gallery director Jock Reynolds.

The Impressionist and modern sales pivoted on a few choice works.  At Sotheby’s, the biggest catch was Amedeo Modigliani’s 1917 painting, Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Roman Woman). The sensuous nude perches, legs crossed, on a plush red settee. She is flush in all the right places. The work set an auction record for Modigliani the last time it was up for auction in 1999, selling for $16.7 million. This time around it made $69 million.

Over at Christie’s…The four clear cut  standouts came from Henry Kravis–including Juan Gris’s 1913 Cubist, Violon et guitare.

This week contemporary art sells.

Collector Steve Wynn is dispensing with his 1964 Lichtenstein comic classic Ohhh…Alright... at Christie’s contemporary sale. Christie’s nabbed a string of estates, including Dennis Hopper, Robert Shapazian and Max Palevsky.

The contemporary sections burst with Pop. Examples of Abstract Expressionism are…

Link to Bloomberg story here.

Henri Matisse’s life-size bronze of a woman’s back sold for $48.8 million, an auction record for the artist, as Christie’s International’s New York Impressionist and modern art sale sustained a recovery from last year’s recession.

As collector and SAC Capital Advisors LP Founder Steven A. Cohen watched from a sky box, last night’s two-hour auction totaled $231.4 million with commissions, slightly above Christie’s $198.3 million low estimate, which doesn’t include the buyers’ premiums. The result was triple Christie’s year-ago tally of $74.2 million.

Dealers said the sale was strong for quality items, with 80 percent of the 84 lots finding buyers, similar to the previous night’s sale at Sotheby’s, which totaled $227.6 million, led by a $69 million Amedeo Modigliani nude.

“We are in a happier place,” said New York dealer Maxwell Davidson IV, after the sale. “There is not as much doom and gloom. If there’s quality, you can sell it.”

Davidson bought a $1.4 million pink Wassily Kandinsky watercolor and a blue Picasso watercolor for $818,500.

The Matisse, from an edition of 10, was conceived in 1930 and cast…