A postscript to my recent post on Gerhard Richter: one of his candle paintings set a record for the artist at Christie’s evening sale of contemporary art in London on Friday.
Kerze (Candle), from 1982, fetched £10,457,250, or just over $16.4 million. The pre-sale estimate was £6,000,000 – £9,000,000
— which shows once again that aggressive estimates often discourage, rather than encourage, buyers.
After the sale on Friday, Josh Baer, who publishes BaerFaxt, wrote: “Did anyone but me notice that the Richter candle painting which sold for $16.5 million (usd) had been on offer this winter for $15 million … by a Danish gallery via the VIP Art Fair (online)??”
Good spotting.
I’ve always likes Richter’s Candles, and but never knew how many he painted until I read Judd Tully’s report of the sale on ArtInfo. Tully cites Francis Outred, the head of postwar and contemporary art for Christie’s in Europe saying there are 27 in the series “with three destroyed, seven in museums, and the rest held privately.” Of those, 12 are single-candle canvases like the just-sold painting.
Tully quoted the previous record for Richter as £7,972,500 ($15,843,600), set when another Candle, from 1983, was sold at Sotheby’s London in February 2008.
Some remarked that the Richter retrospective, Panorama, on view at the Tate Modern had affected the price — it includes another single-candle painting that is supposedly inferior to this one. But I don’t know — Richter is revered, and this was a great example of a series that he said, according to the Tate, that “when making them he ‘experienced feelings to do with contemplation, remembering, silence and death.’ ”
A universal theme.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Christie’s