Photographically, Christie’s distanced itself from the other two major auction houses during its recent run of contemporary art sales in New York. Spread across three separate sales – 20th Century Evening, 21st Century Evening, and Post-War & Contemporary Art Day – the available photographs leaned heavily toward the highest price tier, with eight lots estimated at or above $500K. Aside from one withdrawal (a Diane Arbus print), the results were strong, including a new world record for William Eggleston, in the form of a large sized later print, estimated at $700000-900000 and sold at $1441500 (image below, via Christie’s). The top lot honors went to a Richard Prince cowboy print (at more than $1.86M), and another Prince cowboy print more than doubled its high estimate to take a close second place.
When the dust settled on the various sales, the low overall Buy-In rate for photography (under 14%) led to Total Sale Proceeds for photography of just over $8.6M, topping the high end of the aggregate pre-sale estimate range by a decent margin. And if we want to use a broad definition of photography, to include minimally photocollaged and/or digitally sourced/printed works of photographic imagery by the likes of Urs Fischer, Rashid Johnson, Anselm Kiefer, Gabriel Orozco, Wade Guyton and others, we can raise the tally by another $1.8M.
The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
| Summary Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Total Lots | 22 |
| Aggregate Pre Sale Low Estimate | $5642000 |
| Aggregate Pre Sale High Estimate | $8083000 |
| Total Lots Sold | 19 |
| Total Lots Bought In | 3 |
| Buy In % | 13.64% |
| Total Sale Proceeds | $8670480 |
Here is the breakdown (using our typical Low, Mid, and High definitions):
| Detailed Breakdown | |
|---|---|
| Low Total Lots | 0 |
| Total Low Lots Sold | NA |
| Total Low Lots Bought In | NA |
| Low Buy In % | NA |
| Aggregate High Estimate of Low Lots | $0 |
| Total Proceeds from Low Lots | $0 |
| Mid Total Lots | 3 |
| Total Mid Lots Sold | 3 |
| Total Mid Lots Bought In | 0 |
| Mid Buy In % | 0.00% |
| Aggregate High Estimate of Mid Lots | $63000 |
| Total Proceeds from Mid Lots | $88200 |
| Total High Lots | 19 |
| Total High Lots Sold | 16 |
| Total High Lots Bought In | 3 |
| High Buy In % | 15.79% |
| Aggregate High Estimate of High Lots | $8020000 |
| Total Proceeds from High Lots | $8582280 |
The top photography lot by High estimate was lot 22B, Richard Prince, Untitled (Cowboy), 1999, estimated at $1000000-1500000; it was also the top photography outcome of the sales at $1865000 (image above, via Christie’s).
94.74% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range and there was one positive surprise in the sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate) (image above, via Christie’s):
Lot 814, Richard Prince, Silhouette Cowboy, 1998-1999, estimated at $600000-800000, sold at $1744000
The complete lot by lot results can be found here (20th Century Evening), here (21st Century Evening), and here (Post-War & Contemporary Art Day).
