In a sweltering London on Friday amid a Europe-wide heat wave, David Hockney led the night at Phillips London’s sale of modern and contemporary art, his The Only One with Waves (1991) selling for £2.4 million ($3.2 million), just above its low estimate. The four-foot-wide canvas was painted in Malibu, California, and shows breaking waves in a flattened pictorial space; it was the first major work by the British artist to come to auction since he died at his London home on June 11, a month shy of turning 89.
The sale was estimated to bring £9.34–£13.4 million ($12.4–$17.7 million), and fell just shy of its low estimate for a hammer total of £9.3 million ($12.3 million). Including the house’s fees, the total was £12 million ($15.8 million). The house placed 76 of 90 lots offered for a sell-through rate of 84 percent.
The only other work to clear the £1 million mark was Yayoi Kusama’s 2013 acrylic painting INFINITY-NETS (MAE), which exceeded its £1.2 million ($1.6 million) high estimate to fetch £1.5 million ($2 million). The Japan-born artist accounted for two works in the top 10 for the night, which also featured works by artists including Jean Dubuffet, Donald Judd, Hsiao Chin, and Jadé Fadojutimi. A record was set for Andrew Cranston, whose painting and collage on canvas Meditation in a Tenement (2023) just exceeded its £60,000 ($79,340) low estimate to hammer for £65,000 ($85,980).
David Hockney, The Only One with Waves (1991).
Phillips
Selling for nearly triple its £150,000 ($198,326) low estimate was an untitled, ca. 1970s oil painting by Maqbool Fida Husain, in bright red and centered on a stylized female figure, which fetched £412,800 ($545,864).
“Today’s sale demonstrates the depth and breadth of demand across modern, post-war and contemporary art,” said Olivia Thornton, deputy chairwoman for modern and contemporary art, Europe, in press materials. “Led by David Hockney’s The Only One with Waves and heated bidding for Yayoi Kusama, the engagement from a truly international collecting community was felt throughout.”
Thornton added, “There was exceptional momentum for the South Asian category, which achieved a 100% sell-through rate and saw Maqbool Fida Husain’s Untitled nearly triple its estimate. The results are a clear reflection of a global collecting audience with an unwavering appetite for quality and historical significance across genres and geographies.”
