Banksy Leads the Charge in Paris to London Auction Relay

Kicking off the evening’s events, Helena Newman took to the rostrum to preside over the Modernités auction in Paris, but hosting from from the saleroom in London, in a further demonstration of art world innovation. A notable highlight was Francis Picabia’s Minos, and this important 1929 canvas from his celebrated Transparencies achieved €3,956,700.

Many of the companion works from this series reside in museum collections across the world, reinforcing the calibre of works offered in the sale.

See Picabia's Minos soar to €3,956,700 in the Modernités sale

This mesmerising Picabia was joined by works demonstrating the breadth of European modernism, with Paris truly at its heart. The star lot of the sale, Pablo Picasso’s arresting 1940 portrait Tête d’homme, from the prestigious collection 'Un Regard Moderne', soared to €4.4 million in its auction debut.

Abstract works also made a big impact, with Pierre Soulages’s work on paper, Peinture 73 x 60 cm, 15 septembre 1975, selling for €351,300, whilst Kazuo Shiraga’s Chikaisei Shinsanshi from his Water Margin series, and Zao Wou-Ki’s 12.12.68, sold for €2.5 million and €1.1 million respectively.

Taking centre stage in London the story of the night was Banksy’s Show me the Monet, a rare and entirely hand-painted canvas from early in his career, appropriating and disrupting Monet's iconic waterlilies for the contemporary age.

After a lively and competitive 9-minute bidding battle between clients from around the world, the work hammered down at £7.5 million, securing the second highest price for a Banksy at auction, and cementing Sotheby’s position as the market leader for exceptional results for works by the sought-after street artist.

Watch Show me the Monet hammer down at £7,551,600

In another triumph for art inspired by the streets, Jean Michel Basquiat's spirited homage to New York, Justcome Suit, rose to £5.1 million. It was painted in 1983, when Basquiat was at the height of his powers, and bursts with his trademark energy.

Elsewhere in the sale, Italian art was strongly represented through works by Enrico Castellani and Lucio Fontana, spanning several decades from minimalism through to Arte Povera and beyond, demonstrating real diversity from the post-war period. Piero Manzoni's 1962 masterpiece Achrome, which investigates the conceptual limits of painting sold for £1.7 million, and continuing the theme of abstraction were two works by Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild, which found a buyer for £5.1 million, and the 1983 dynamic colour study, Arnold, that sold above its estimate at £1.2 million.

Mid-career artists produced strong results throughout the sale, with Beatriz Milhazes' self-described exploration in to 'chromatic free geometry’, Maracorola, achieving £620,000, and Adrian Ghenie’s Pie Fight Interior selling for £2.9 million – solidifying the robust market for works from these artists.

Modernités achieved the highest total for a sale in this category to date at €23.8 million ($28.2 million), whilst the Contemporary auction finished at £47.8 million ($62.2 million) reaching a combined total of $90.4 million.