GerhardRichter

Rare Lucian Freud Self-Portrait Set for $6.5 Million Sale

British painter Lucian Freud's Self-Portrait with a Black Eye, painted in 1978, headlines an impressive collection of work on offer during Sotheby's Contemporary Art auction in London on Feb.10. The brilliant artist's extremely rare self-portrait, never previously exhibited in public, is expected to fetch up to $6.5 million and is one of five Freud paintings crossing the block during this event. Also on offer are Willem de Kooning's key late work Untitled XIV, painted in 1983 and estimated at $3.25 million - $4.29 million; the monumental Abstraktes Bild from 1988 by Gerhard Richter, estimated at $3.25 million - $4.8 million; and Andy Warhol's Jackie from 1964, one of the artist's best known portraits of the famed first lady, estimated at $1.3 million - $2 million.

Tags: Andy Warhol, AndyWarhol, contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, Gerhard Richter, GerhardRichter, London, Lucian Freud, LucianFreud, Sothebys, UK, willem de kooning, WillemDeKooning

Blame Andy Warhol for Drop in Auction Sales

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

It's no surprise that last year's art market looked nothing like that of 2007. Last year, the top 10 artists by sales racked up $1.7 billion and accounted for 20 percent of the global art market on 1.5 percent of transactions. This slip in the big revenue number is a lot different from 2007, in which the top 10 brought in $1.8 billion, a year-over-year gain of 50 percent, according to ArtPrice.

Andy Warhol was the problem last year.

The top artist of 2007 fell substantially last year. In 2008, only $236.7 million in Warhol sales occurred – compared to $420 million the year before. As a result, Warhol slid from the #1 spot to #3, and Picasso regained the apex. Francis Bacon moved from #3 to #2 on sales of $256 million. Unbelievable growth of 514 percent in his work from January 2005 to January 2008 turned abruptly, and the artist finished last year down 48 percent ... not that he'd give a tinker's damn about it.

Despite the economic challenges, the price of admission grew. Last year, sales in a particular artist at auction had to reach $91.8 million to hit the big time, up from $87 million in 2007, $59.6 million in 2006 and a comparatively paltry $33.7 million in 2005.

Take a look at the scorecard after the jump.

Source

Tags: andy warhol, AndyWarhol, bacon, claude monet, ClaudeMonet, damien hirst, DamienHirst, degas, francis bacon, FrancisBacon, gerhard richter, GerhardRichter, hirst, pablo picasso, PabloPicasso, picasso, warhol