In a collective nod to a downturn in revenue from Europe and the importance of their Asian clientele, the three major auction houses have rescheduled their February sales to avoid clashing with the Lunar New Year celebrated in China. Christie’s and Sotheby’s have moved their Impressionist and Modern and Surrealist sales to 28 February and 1 March respectively, as we went to press, while Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips are holding their post-war and contemporary evening sales in the second week of March. See our website for live auction reports from all the evening sales and read on for highlights from the postwar and contemporary evening sales this month.
Christie’s
7 March
Total estimate: £68.2m-£102.4m
Christie’s leads with an early Peter Doig work, Cobourg 3 + 1 More (1994), which carries an estimate of £8m to £12m for its first time at auction. Its consigner, the insurance company Provinzial Rheinland, will devote proceeds to promoting arts and culture in the Rhine region.
Sotheby’s
8 March
Total estimate: £83m-£115m
Sotheby’s is selling one of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s full-length male figures, Untitled (One Eyed Man or Xerox Face) (1982), estimated at £14m-£18m, which last sold at auction in 1987 for $23,100.
Phillips
8 March
Total estimate: £15m-£21m
Phillips’s star lot is Rudolph Stingel’s Untitled (Plan B) (2008), which is estimated at £2.5m-£3.5m and was inspired by the artist’s Plan B installation at Grand Central Terminal in New York, in 2004.