Making first/rare appearances on the auction stage:
• Pat Steir made a dazzling debut in London this evening. No work by the artist has ever appeared at auction in London before. Her ‘Four Yellow / Red Negative Waterfall’, given to the seller by the artist 20 years ago, made £680,750 / $829,154 / €784,700, after competition from six bidders. This doubled the existing artist record set at Sotheby’s in New York just last week.
• The sale opened with a £236,750 ($288,362) record for Carol Rama. She died in 2015 at the age of 97, but only now is momentum growing for her work. This is the fifth time her record has been broken since the beginning of last year, and the first time we have offered a work by the artist at Sotheby’s London in 14 years. (est. £70,000-100,000.)
• On the artist’s 87th birthday, a new record was set for Swiss artist Franz Gertsch when ‘Luciano II’ made £2.7m / $3.3m / €3.2m, superseding the record Sotheby’s set in 2011 for a portrait of the same sitter. (est. £1.5-2 million). The work was bought tonight by Mr. Ben Frija, of Galleri K in Oslo. Mr Frija will be representing Franz Gertsch at the upcoming TEFAF Fair in Maastricht.

The success of these artists tonight echoes that of Adrian Ghenie, whose work was first offered in the context of an evening sale at Sotheby’s in 2013. That work, Dr. Mengele 2, made £121,250 (est. £30,000-40,000), a record at the time. Tonight, his ‘Self-Portrait as Charles Darwin’ sold over estimate for £3.3m / $3.96 / €3.75m (£2-3 million).
Sotheby’s London was the first to introduce Ghenie to a Contemporary Art Evening Sale. Dr. Mengele 2, 2011, sold in the February 2013 Evening Sale for £121,250 (est. £30,000-40,000)

Facts and Figures
• 57 works sold of 61 lots offered
• 75% of lots had never been offered at auction before
• A 35% increase in the number of sale participants compared to the equivalent auction last year
• Geographical spread: participants from 43 countries, up from 38 this time last year
The Contemporary Art Day Sale follows tomorrow with an estimate of £10.4-14.17m / $12.6-17.9m / €11.9m - 17m.