Phillips concluded its modern and contemporary evening sale on Wednesday in New York with impressive results, generating $67.3 million in total sales despite following in the wake of nearly $1.4 billion in sales by competitors Christie's and Sotheby's earlier in the week. The auction house achieved a 94 percent sell-through rate by lot, with only two of the 33 offered works failing to find buyers.
The sale was headlined by Francis Bacon's "Study for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne and George Dyer" from 1967, which sold for $16 million against a high estimate of $18 million. An untitled Joan Mitchell painting from 1957-58 also performed strongly, achieving $14.3 million just shy of its $15 million high estimate. The evening's biggest surprise came from "Cera," a juvenile triceratops skeleton preserved for 66 million years, which exceeded expectations by selling for $5.3 million against a high estimate of $3.5 million.
Auctioneer Henry Highley, Phillips' head of private sales, opened the evening on an optimistic note, announcing that no lots had been withdrawn and describing the dinosaur as "a rare glimpse into deep time." The sale got off to a strong start with Ruth Asawa's hanging wire sculpture selling for $1 million against a high estimate of $600,000. Firelei Báez's "Daughter of Revolutions" from 2014 achieved $645,000, temporarily breaking her auction record of $567,000, though this record would be surpassed later that same evening at Christie's where a 2021 Báez painting sold for $1.1 million.
The Basquiat market showed continued strength with two works by the late artist performing well. An untitled work on paper sold for $1.25 million, slightly above its $1.2 million high estimate, while "Exercise" from 1984 commanded $3.85 million. Eleven lots in total crossed the seven-figure threshold, including Max Ernst's bronze "Dans les rues d'Athènes" from 1960, which sparked a 10-minute bidding battle before selling for $1.5 million, more than doubling its high estimate.
Other notable results included Camille Pissarro's "Le pré et la maison d'Éragny, femme jardinant, printemps" from 1901, which brought $1.9 million, Sean Scully's "Wall of Light Pale Green" from 2014 at $838,500, and Robert Motherwell's "A Sculptor's Picture, with Blue" from 1958 for $1.2 million. Mark Tansey's "Revelever" from 2012 also performed strongly, selling for $4.6 million.
Phillips celebrated the results as a 24 percent increase from last year's equivalent sale, which totaled $54.1 million. However, it's worth noting that last November's auction was itself a 23 percent decrease from the 2023 sale. The challenging position of hosting the third evening sale of the week, after Christie's and Sotheby's had already staged their marquee events, created a difficult environment for Phillips.
London-based art advisor Liberté Nuti observed that Phillips' position as the third auction house to hold its evening sale was particularly challenging "in such a classic season," referring to the high prices achieved for modernist and blue-chip artists earlier in the week. She noted that Phillips is known for cutting-edge contemporary art and design, a market segment that has slowed over the past year, while this season's New York fall auctions have been dominated by major collections, estates, and classic modern and contemporary works.
Robert Manley, Phillips' chairman and worldwide head of modern and contemporary art, dismissed concerns about the timing disadvantage, telling reporters he was "ecstatic" about the results. He explained that the only unsold lots were "a large piece of gold, which I wouldn't exactly call our specialty, and a painting that was just so massive that, frankly, very few people can handle it," referring to works by Thunderbolt and Jadé Fadojutimi respectively, with the latter being an enormous 118-by-197-inch untitled piece.
Despite the strong results, some market observers felt the impact of the week's earlier spectacular sales. New York-based advisor Dane Jensen acknowledged that while the Phillips sale featured "some really great works," much of "the air was sucked out of the room after the extraordinary things that were sold at Christie's and Sotheby's earlier in the week." The comment referenced the record-breaking sales earlier in the week, including Sotheby's sale of a Gustav Klimt portrait for $236.4 million, the highest price ever achieved for a work of modern art at auction and the second-highest price ever paid for any artwork at auction, followed by an additional $160 million for two Klimt landscapes.
The Phillips sale demonstrated the auction house's ability to achieve solid results even in the shadow of its larger competitors' headline-grabbing sales, with Manley expressing optimism about market conditions, stating, "We had tons of bidding. I only wish we had more work to sell because the market is so strong right now."
