Sotheby's London Contemporary Evening Sale falls short of low estimate

Sale falls below low estimate

The Art Newspaper reported that the sale took place at Sotheby's New Bond Street rooms on Thursday 15 October 2026. An alarm briefly interrupted the start, and auctioneer Tom Eddison told the room: "Don't panic, it's okay."

Of the 34 lots offered after three were withdrawn, six went unsold. The sell-through rate was 82%, and about 30% of lots hammered above their presale low estimate. Including fees, the total reached £45.9m, slightly below the £47.6m total in October 2025.

Thomas Stauffer, president of the Swiss Art Market Association, told The Art Newspaper that collectors are "not willing to take big risks" and set limits "conservatively low." He said the results reflected the cautious mood in the contemporary art market, which was also visible at Frieze London.

De Kooning sets a European record

Willem de Kooning's 1977 Untitled was the top lot. Eddison opened the bidding at £7m, below the £8m presale low estimate. The guaranteed work hammered at £8.2m and sold for £9.8m with fees, a record for the artist at auction in Europe. The price was two and a half times what the work made at Sotheby's New York in 2015. Sale prices include fees; presale estimates do not.

Gerhard Richter's 1992 Abstraktes Bild sold for £5.4m, or £6.7m with fees, slightly below its £6m low estimate but above the £3.6m it made at Christie's London in 2011. Mark Rothko's 1969 Untitled sold for £3m, or £3.8m with fees, to an online bidder, meeting its low estimate.

Unsold works and a Kusama shortfall

A 2021 Yayoi Kusama sculpture, I Who Was Awestruck at the Shape of the Secret I Found in the Cosmos, hammered at £250,000. That was a quarter of its £1m presale low estimate. It sold for £320,000 with fees. Stauffer said the result "does not go down well in auction database history" and questioned the presale valuation.

Works by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye estimated at £600,000 to £900,000 went unsold. A Jadé Fadojutimi work estimated at £350,000 to £450,000 also went unsold. Stauffer called the unsold works "concerning" for the ultra-contemporary segment. "The price hikes have been proven to be unhealthy, and people are no longer willing to pay fantasy prices for young artists," he said.

David Hockney's iPad drawing Water Lilies in the Pond with Pots of Flowers made a hammer price of £1.5m, or £1.9m with fees, three times its £450,000 low estimate and a record for an iPad work by the artist. Michael Andrews' Butterfly Fish drew bids to £550,000 at hammer, nearly five times its £120,000 high estimate, and sold for £704,000 with fees, an artist record for a work on paper. George Baselitz's P.D. Idol sold for £1.9m, or £2.4m with fees, nearly double its £1m low estimate.

Sotheby's noted the result brought total auction sales across all categories at its London rooms in 2026 to $1bn. Modern and contemporary auctions generated £598m, or $793m, the highest year-to-date total since 2015.