Over ten million euros turnover on two auction days

Three collections arose the passion of bidders at Karl & Faber’s summer auctions of “Modern and Contemporary Art”. With the collections Paris Passion, Saints & Sinners and Anything Goes, the Munich art auction house achieved a brilliant success
An international audience appreciated the high-quality offerings by Karl & Faber with exciting bidding wars leading to top prices. The most expensive objects went to private bidders from abroad
In the Modern Art section, works on paper by Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch, Marc Chagall and Salvador Dalí achieved outstanding results, while Lucio Fontana, Francesco Vezzoli and Norbert Bisky were the top artists in the Contemporary Art section

“One doesn’t have to leave Germany to successfully sell international modern art,” said Dr. Rupert Keim, managing partner of Karl & Faber, summing up the two extremely lively auction days, which once again brought in top results for the Munich auction house (see also list of results below). The auction was characterised by fierce bidding, with bidders from all over the world particularly keen on works from the collections Paris Passion, Saints & Sinners and Anything Goes. Surprising price jumps were often the result.

For example, Pablo Picasso‘s gouache Pierrot et Arlequin à la Terrasse d’un Café (lot 707) from the Paris Passion collection jumped from € 200,000 to a result of € 600,000*, going to a Swiss private collection; Edvard Munch‘s coloured woodcut Two figures. The Lonely Ones (lot 701) went back to Oslo for 375,000* after starting at € 144,000; Marc Chagall‘s gouache Grande Corbeille de Fleurs (lot 720) was sold for € 375,000* to a French bidder after starting at € 160,000; and Salvador Dalí‘s pen and ink drawing La Métamorphose de Narcisse (lot 716) achieved well over € 268,750*, five times more than the opening price – the highest hammer price in the German-speaking region. “With its 24 lots, the collection Paris Passion was able to achieve over three million euros and therefore doubling the estimate,” said Sheila Scott, Managing Director and Head of Modern Art.

Surprisingly, the highest percentage increase of the evening was achieved by a work from the contemporary department: following a fierce bidding battle the laser print Comizi di non Amore – The Prequel (Jeanne Moreau) by the Italian Francesco Vezzoli (lot 1222) went back to its home country for € 112,500*, after the work had been offered for only € 12,000 in the beginning.

From the collection Saints & Sinners, the works by Norbert Bisky stood out in particular and sold very well throughout – especially the oil painting Aufmacher (lot 841), which brought its consignor € 75,000* (Opening Price: € 28,000). The works of the New Leipzig School were generally well received at the Karl & Faber Auction 311, achieving 183 percent of the lower estimate.

120 percent of the estimate was realised by Anything Goes, the “naughty” collection from Hamburg, which, with a humorous wink, brought together “fierce painting and unbounded sculpture” by the artist generation of the 1980s. Everything was possible for two artists in particular: Georg Herold‘s apparently appetising caviar painting (lot 1042) soared to € 62,500*, more than six times its opening price of € 9,600, while Werner Büttner‘s oil painting Shehu’s Death (lot 1098) doubled its opening price at € 52,500* (Opening price: € 20,000). “These results confirm the market trend that paintings by the Junge Wilde from the 1980s are in demand,” commented Dr. Julia Runde, Head of Contemporary Art. “As with Paris Passion and Saints & Sinners, they show how sensible it is to market works in the context of their collection – in the spirit of our claim ‘The Art of Collecting®.”

Top Ten – Karl & Faber Auctions 310, 311, 312

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Fabienne Gawlitza

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