Marlow Moss's painting *White, Black, Blue and Red* (1944) sold for £609,600 ($819,912) at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction in London, far exceeding its presale high estimate of £480,000. The work, backed by a guarantee, sparked a bidding war among seven bidders and set a new auction record for the British Constructivist artist. The previous record was set in 2022 at Christie’s London.
Sotheby's London contemporary evening sale on Tuesday brought in nearly £62.5 million ($84 million), within its pre-sale estimate of £55 million to £74 million. The 48-lot sale achieved an 83% sell-through rate, with five works selling for over £5 million each, led by Tamara de Lempicka's 'La Belle Rafaëla' (1927) at £7.4 million and Pablo Picasso's 'Nu assis dans un fauteuil' (1964–65). The auction saw strong bidding for a Basquiat work on paper, 'Untitled (Indian Head)', which sold for £5.4 million, and a standout result for Yu Nishimura's 'through the snow' (2023), which tripled its high estimate at £230,000.
Sotheby’s June Modern and contemporary art evening sale in London netted £50.8m (£62.5m with fees) from 48 lots, with an 87% sell-through rate, falling below the pre-sale estimate of £55.2m to £81.1m and marking a 25% decrease from last year’s equivalent sale. The top lot was Tamara de Lempicka’s *La Belle Rafaëla* (1927), which sold for £6.1m (£7.4m with fees), while a Jenny Saville drawing *Mirror* (2011-12) achieved an auction record for the artist at £1.7m (£2.1m with fees). Several high-profile works were passed, including Egon Schiele’s *Portrait Study (Head of a Girl, Hilde Ziegler)* and Barbara Hepworth’s *Vertical Forms*, reflecting cautious bidding in a bearish market.