Sotheby's Contemporary: Official Tallies of a Record-Studded Sale

Here are the just-released facts and figures, hot off Sotheby's presses:

The 1950 Rothko, "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)," at $72.84 million (including buyer's premium), set a record not only for the artist but also for any contemporary work at auction. (The previous Rothko record was $22.42 million.) Since David Rockefeller stated that he was going to donate the proceeds to charity, there should be some very happy beneficiaries.

Among the sale's 14 artists' auction records (with buyer's premium) were: Bacon ($52.68 million), Basquiat ($14.6 million), Rauschenberg ($10.68 million), Wesselmann ($5.86 million).

Tonight's sale totaled $254.87 million, including the buyer's premium---a record for a contemporary art auction. The hammer total was $225.41 million, within the presale estimate of $196.8-$265.1 million.

Despite generally strong prices, big-money buy-ins of three Pollocks and a Richter did take a significant toll on the results. Also left stranded: de Kooning's "Untitled (Woman)" of 1966, unsold at $3.5 million against its $4.5-6.5 million estimate.

In all, nine of the 74 works failed to find buyers.

The official price list is here. The online catalogue (enabling you to match the prices to the works) is here.

One interesting sidelight: Auctioneer Tobias Meyer announced at the beginning of the evening that "interested parties" might be bidding on Lot 22, the Bacon. According to the catalogue's "Conditions of Sale," such parties may be "providing or participating in a guarantee of the lot." In other words, someone (such as a dealer or collector) unaffiliated with Sotheby's may have helped to back a guaranteed price for the Bacon (along the lines that I described in my Wall Street Journal article today). Since the painting far outstripped its presale estimate (and, presumably, its guarantee), the gamble should have paid off handsomely for the guarantors, who typically take a large percentage of the price in excess of the amount that they guarantee to the seller.

I wonder if there were any questions about the Bacon's "interested parties" at the post-sale press conference. We'll have to read Lindsay tomorrow.

I won't be able to give you the same kind of blow-by-blow blog tomorrow night for Christie's, as I did tonight for Sotheby's (in my prior post): Their sale, estimated to bring a hammer total of $225-305 million (higher than tonight's estimate) won't be webcast.

And Christopher Burge is SO ready for prime time!