Auction postwar and contemporary art Christie's, held on 19 October, was unsuccessful. More than half of the top lots were left unsold. Does this mean that the boom in contemporary art will come to an end soon?

At auction Christie's, held in London on 19 October , had high hopes. Another would be: lots appeared on the list of works by such outstanding authors! .. At the tender had been submitted to the painting of Francis Bacon (Francis Bacon), Lusiena Freud (Lucian Freud), Luchio Fountains (Lucio Fontana), Gerhard Richter (Gerhard Richter) and Andy Warhol (Andy Warhol). Results of the auction rather dreary: of the 47 lots did not sell 21. Auction brings total 31.9 million pounds - at the lower boundary estimeyta 57 million. Experts agree that the entire blame high prices on products. If the «Portrait of Henrietta Moraes» Bacon was not evaluated in the 5-7 million pounds, as, say, a million three, then all would be fine.

New York dealer Alberto Mugraby (Alberto Mugrabi) offered 1.85 million pounds for «Nine multicolored Marilyn» Warhol and refused to raise the price to 1.9 million, although lower estimeyt was 2.2 million. The auction house had to purchase the painting itself. Mughrabi, whose family has one of the largest collections of works by Warhol, explained his reluctance to buy work that the price that had hoped to help out Christie's, does not reflect the current situation on world markets. But over the past few years, prices for Warhol works, as well as Takashi Murakami (Takashi Murakami), Richard Prince (Richard Prince) and other kings of the art-market, increased by more than four times! Now, apparently, auction houses will have to adapt to new realities.

The most expensive of the bids was the picture of Fountains Luchio «Spatial Concept. End of God ». This canvas with holes was sold for 9 million pounds, with 12 million estimeyte.

good enough for the general background of the canvas sold author most expensive work of living artists Lusiena Freud - it has 5.4 million pounds (estimeyta lower limit of 5 million). Perhaps the painting «played into the hands» of its rarity: it is one of two well-known artist's canvas with the image of his friend Francis Bacon.

Another top auction lot, a huge beautiful «Claudius» Gerhard Richter , also remained unsold.

«Red House» Peter Doig (Peter Doig) , estimated at 2-3 million pounds, went for 1.8 million. A relatively inexpensive work Warhol, Jeff Koons (Jeff Koons), Jean-Michel Basque (Jean-Michel Basquiat) and Ed Rushi (Ed Ruscha), which Christie's offered to 500-900 thousand pounds, no one wanted to buy. «If Christie's lower starting price reduced by 20 percent, it would be better», - said director of the London Gallery Victoria Miro Glenn Scott-Wright (Glenn Scott-Wright).

Head of Christie's Ed Dolman (Ed Dolman) has stated that in the future in the preparation of bidding will have to take into account the situation on financial markets. Experts began to make terrible assumptions immediately after publishing the results of auctions, Sotheby's, held in early October in Hong Kong , which yielded only about half estimeyta. The main reason experts cited the fact that the top lots - the work of fashion Fanchzhi Zeng (Zeng Fanzhi) and Zhang Syaogana (Zhang Xiaogang) - have been seriously overvalued.

last week passed auctions Christie's, are devoted to modern and classic photos - here also glad it was nothing special: results of tendering does not «dopolzli» even to the lower limit of estimeytov. Yesterday in London, ended Frieze Art Fair Frieze , the sale of which, according to information «from the field», were very low. To show, in addition to the long-auction Christie's, were timed bidding works postwar and contemporary art Sotheby's and Phillips de Pury, who also successfully did not call. Sotheby's Auction October 17 in which 62 lots were put up, and brought 22 million pounds instead of the expected 30.6 - 42.8 million. Results of Phillips looks even more disappointing: 5 million at the lower boundary estimeyta 18.6 million. Of the 70 lots remained unsold for 46 per cent, including the works of Takashi Murakami and Richard Prince. In total, the three auction, timed to the Frieze, yielded 59 million pounds - with a minimum estimeyte 106.2 million.

The experts agree that the good results, showing a solo auction Demiena Hurst (Damien Hirst) last month , a «peak» boom in contemporary art.

Material prepared Yulia Maksimova

Sources: bloomberg.com , artinvestment.ru