De Kooning Sets European Auction Record at Sotheby's as Phillips Sells Out During Frieze Week

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• Phillips' Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale on October 15, 2026, totaled £14.8 million, up 44% from 2025, with all 20 lots sold.
• Gerhard Richter's Mathis from the Marcel Brient collection was Phillips' top lot at £5,839,000, below its £6 million low estimate.
• Banksy's Keep Ou T (2019) made its auction debut at £1.6 million, within estimate.
• David Hockney's Red and Black Fruit (1988) sold for £993,300, above its high estimate.
• Eva Helene Pade's Yellow Nights (2020) set an auction record at £167,700, more than triple its high estimate.
• Joseph Yaeger's Once, always (2023) set an auction record at £645,000, against an estimate of £120,000–180,000.
• Sotheby's Contemporary Evening Auction totaled £46 million, down from £47.3 million in October 2025, but brought the house's 2026 London modern and contemporary total to nearly £600 million, the highest since 2015.
• Willem de Kooning's Untitled (1977) sold for £9.8 million at Sotheby's, a new European auction record for the artist.
• Sotheby's sale offered 34 lots (after three withdrawals), with 28 sold in about an hour; around ten guarantees covered roughly a third of the catalogue.
• Gerhard Richter's Abstraktes Bild (1992) was Sotheby's second-highest result at £5.4 million hammer (£6.7 million with fees), below its £6 million low estimate.
• Mark Rothko's Untitled (1969) sold for £3.8 million, below estimate, as the third-highest lot at Sotheby's.
• Louis Fratino's Kissing Couple (2019) sold within estimate for £320,000; the artist is currently showing at David Zwirner in London, where his works are sold out.
• Lots by Jade Fadojutimi and Yiadom-Boakye failed to sell at Sotheby's.
• The London auctions followed a solid start at Christie's, closing Frieze Week.