"Viewed together, the lots in Made in Britain were truly a testament to the dynamism of the British Art scene – be this the leading names in contemporary art, the pioneering studio ceramic potters or the revolutionary photographers who captured the Swinging Sixties behind their lenses. The beauty of the sale was that it offered something for every collector – when the catalogue went live, I challenged anyone to walk away without spotting something they would love to live with – and that came through in today’s strong results. The depth of bidding was an encouraging sign, with participants from 41 countries – in line with last year – and a surge in online buying."
- Total: The sale totalled an above-estimate £2,113,500 / $2,574,877 (est. £1,319,400-1,957,400), with a solid sell-through rate of over 80%. 60% of the lots sold soared past their pre-sale high-estimates.
- Statistics on Bidders & Buyers: Participants hailed from 41 countries, from across Europe, North America and Asia. 85% of bidders were using the online platform, which translated to 53% of the buyers placed their winning bids online, an increase of 30% from the equivalent sale in 2019.
- White Glove for Ceramics: Every single studio ceramic offered today found a buyer, with exquisite examples by Dame Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, Jennifer Lee, James Tower and Bernard Leach.
- Records: New auction records were achieved for David Shrigley (Lot 3), whose weary, rampaging elephant sold for nine times its pre-sale estimate, a rare, Bohemian portrait of a reclining man painted circa 1918 by Nina Hamnett (Lot 93) and Gary Bunt’s majestic The Sermon in the Wheat Field (Lot 149).
- Top Lot: The auction was led by Bridget Riley’s hypnotic October 5, Revision of August 11 (Lot 34), a pencil and gouache on paper from 1998, which made its auction debut at £125,000, almost doubling its estimate.
- Further Highlights: The auction also saw strong results for L.S. Lowry’s drawing of a Trawler in a Rough Sea (Lot 168), a rediscovery consigned via our online ‘request an estimate’ service, Winifred Nicholson’s The Vineyard, Mas de Fourques (Lot 189), from the collection of Pat and Michael York, and Chris Levine’s hot pink depiction of the Queen (Lot 28), among others.
CONTACT INFO
London | Melica Khansari | Melica.Khansari@Sothebys.com | +44 (0)20 7293 5164
About Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s has been uniting collectors with world-class works of art since 1744. Sotheby’s became the first international auction house when it expanded from London to New York (1955), the first to conduct sales in Hong Kong (1973), India (1992) and France (2001), and the first international fine art auction house in China (2012). Today, Sotheby’s has a global network of 80 offices in 40 countries and presents auctions in 10 different salesrooms, including New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris. Sotheby’s offers collectors the resources of Sotheby’s Financial Services, the world’s only full-service art financing company, as well as Advisory services for collectors, museums, corporations, artists, estates and foundations. Sotheby’s presents private sale opportunities in more than 70 categories, including three retail businesses: Sotheby’s Wine, Sotheby’s Diamonds, and Sotheby’s Home, the online marketplace for interior design.
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* Estimates do not include buyer's premium or overhead premium. Prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer's premium and overhead premium and are net of any fees paid to the purchaser where the purchaser provided an irrevocable bid.
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