De Kooning Sets European Auction Record at Sotheby's London as Market Cools
On 15 October, Sotheby's London achieved a European auction milestone with Willem de Kooning's 1977 oil on canvas, Untitled, which sold for £9.8m including fees after a hammer price of £8.2m, more than double its 2015 value. The auction generated £36.9m at hammer, falling short of the £41.7m estimate, and totaling £45.9m. Out of 34 lots, six did not sell, resulting in an 82% sell-through rate. Yayoi Kusama's sculpture, I Who Was Awestruck, fetched £320,000, while Gerhard Richter's Abstraktes Bild went for £6.7m. David Hockney's iPad drawing reached £1.9m, setting a record for that medium. Sotheby's 2026 auction sales hit $1bn, with £598m from Modern and contemporary auctions, the highest since 2015.
Key facts
- Willem de Kooning's Untitled (1977) sold for £9.8m with fees, setting a European auction record for the artist.
- The sale totaled £36.9m at hammer, below its £41.7m low estimate; with fees, £45.9m.
- Of 34 lots offered, six went unsold, an 82% sell-through rate.
- Yayoi Kusama's sculpture hammered at £250,000, a quarter of its £1m low estimate.
- David Hockney's iPad drawing set an auction record for an iPad work by the artist at £1.5m hammer.
- Michael Andrews' Butterfly Fish set an artist record for a work on paper at £550,000 hammer.
- Thomas Stauffer cited collectors' unwillingness to take risks and pay 'fantasy prices' for young artists.
- Sotheby's London's 2026 Modern and contemporary auctions reached £598m ($793m), the highest year-to-date since 2015.
Entities
Artists
- Willem de Kooning
- Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
- Jadé Fadojutimi
- Yayoi Kusama
- Gerhard Richter
- Mark Rothko
- David Hockney
- Michael Andrews
- George Baselitz
- Damien Hirst
- Anselm Kiefer
- Leon Kossoff
- Banksy
- Georg Baselitz
- Lucian Freud
- Francis Bacon
- Louis Fratino
- Adrian Ghenie
- Ottilie Windsor
- Albert Oehlen
- Eva Helene Pade
- Joseph Yaeger
- Marcel Brient
- Alex Branczik
- Henry Geldzahler
- Kazeem Adeleke
- Barbara Hepworth
- L.S. Lowry
- Frank Auerbach
- Bridget Riley
Institutions
- Sotheby's
- Gerber & Stauffer Fine Arts
- Swiss Art Market Association
- Christie's
- Phillips
- Documenta
- Fondation Louis Vuitton
- Frieze London
- Artnet News
- Rothko Chapel
- Collezione da Tiffany
- ARTCENTRON
- School of London
- The Museum of Modern Art
- Guggenheim Museum
- Menil Collection
- Centre Pompidou
Locations
- London
- United Kingdom
- New York
- United States
- Zurich
- Switzerland
- Paris
- France
- Hong Kong
- China
- Europe
- Asia