LONDON.- Phillips de Pury & Company’s London Contemporary Art sales concluded with satisfying results which confirm the demand for top works of contemporary art.

The Contemporary Art Evening Sale totaled £4,213,250 with 59% sold by value and 66% sold by lot and the Contemporary Art Day Sale totaled £1,607,500 with 81% sold by value and 79% sold by lot – the highest percentage for a London Day Sale for the company. The combined sales total was £5,820,750.

Simon de Pury, Chairman of Phillips de Pury & Company: “We are very pleased with the results of the sales which confirm there is life in the market. While there are currently extraordinary opportunities for buyers, those vendors like Francesca von Habsburg who sell in this climate, have been rewarded for their decision.”

Successful bidders in the Evening Sale came from Europe (37%), The United States (27%), The United Kingdom (21%), Asia (6%) and other countries (9%).

Top lot, Martin Kippenberger’s Portrait of Paul Schreber (designed by himself), 1994 sold for £432,000 and Zeng Fanzhi’s Huang Jiguang, 2006 sold for £324,000. Richard Prince, Charles Bell, El Anatsui, Georg Baselitz, Johannes Kahrs, Mark Grotjahn, Sean Scully and Karen Kilimnik all hold positions in the top ten.

Record prices for the artist at auction were set for Dan Colen, Tal R and Johannes Kahrs.

Works by Richard Prince, Robert Longo, Richard Long, Jenny Holzer, Zeng Fanzhi and Florian Maier-Aichen all achieved prices well above their high estimates.

Works from The Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art Collections achieved excellent results. Jenny Holzer’s Untitled C-11: Spanish–Truisms 1, Italian-Truisms 4, Laments 2, French-Truisms 2, MAMA, 1990 sold for £96,000 above its pre-sale high estimate of £35,000; Robert Longo’s Untitled (Typhoon Reversed, Philippines - 4/15/99), 2000 sold for £102,000; Richard Long’s Winter Solstice Circle, 2002 sold for £90,000 and Bill Viola’s Unspoken (Silver and Gold), 2001 sold for £144,000 above a high estimate of £90,000. The sale total for these works combined with the results of the Day Sale works from this collection yield a total sale result of £540,460 which will be invested in the production and presentation of contemporary art in Iceland.

The Contemporary Art Day sale saw works by Robert Mangold and Dan Colen achieve prices above their high estimate and records for seventeen artists were established.