11 Records for British Artists
Participants from 46 countries
First session doubles high estimate, totalling £24.3m / $30.3m (est. £8.1-11.7m) Exceeding High Estimate for Entire Three-Part Sale

12 Artist Records: Frank Auerbach, Peter Lanyon, Bernard Leach, Winifred Nicholson Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Henry Lamb, Harold Gilman, Ivon Hitchens, Kenneth Armitage Bryan Wynter, Patrick Caulfield, Meret Oppenheim

Oliver Barker, Chairman, Sotheby’s Europe: “David Bowie’s personal art collection captured the imagination of the tens of thousands who visited our exhibitions and the hundreds who took part in this evening’s sale. Sotheby’s is truly honoured to have had the opportunity to share this collection with the world and, in doing so, offer a fresh insight into the creative mind of one of the greatest cultural figures of our time.”

Part I of David Bowie's personal art collection attracted buyers from around the world, with collectors from 46 countries registered to bid for the 47 works on offer.

Over the course of the 10-day pre-sale exhibition in London, more than 37,000 people came to Sotheby’s to view the collection, making for the best attended pre-sale exhibition London has ever witnessed. Bidders battled for works by the British artists with whom Bowie felt such a close connection, such as Frank Auerbach, Peter Lanyon and Bernard Leach, as eleven new records were set for works of 20th Century British Art. Paintings by leading contemporary artists were also the subject of prolonged bidding battles in the saleroom, led by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s, Air Power, 1984 which sold for £7.1m.
A spokesperson for the Estate of David Bowie said: “David always enjoyed sharing the works in the collection, loaning to museums and actively supporting the art and artists that were part of his world. While the family have kept certain pieces of particular significance, now was the time for others to share David’s love for these remarkable works and let them live on.”

A RECORD-BREAKING NIGHT FOR BRITISH ART
Of the 12 records set tonight, 11 were for works by 20th--Century British artists, led by Frank Auerbach’s Head of Gerda Boehm which sold for £3.8m (est: £300,000-500,000). Bowie famously said of the painting: “My God, yeah! I want to sound like that looks”.

Simon Hucker,
the quieter, hidden-gems of Modern British art which he so loved and championed.”

RESULTS SNAPSHOT
Frank Auerbach, Head of Gerda Boehm, 1965
 8 bidders
 10-minute bidding battle
 Painting made £3.8m / $4.7m (est: £300,000-500,000)
 New record for the artist (previous record stood at £2.3m)
 Bowie said: “My God, yeah! I want to sound like that looks”.
 Portrait of the artist’s cousin, Head of Gerda Boehm, last exhibited at the Royal Academy when
Bowie lent the work to Auerbach’s much-heralded retrospective in 2001.

Peter Lanyon, Witness, 1961
 6 bidders
 Painting made £797,000 / $990,751 (est. £250,000-350,000 / $331,000-463,000)
 New record for the artist (previous record stood at £389,000)
 Bowie collected the St Ives school, and Lanyon, in particular, in great depth. No fewer than eight
works by the artist feature across the sales

Bernard Leach, “Vase with Leaping Fish Design”, late 1960s
 6 bidders
Senior Specialist
Modern & Post-War British Art, said “Bowie was drawn to the art for which
he felt a profound personal connection, collecting with great intellect and passion. There were no
hierarchies among the artists he loved; collecting was yet another expression of his legendary creativity.
Alongside the sensational results for the better-known artists this evening, there was equal enthusiasm from
collectors for
 Vase made £32,500 / $40,401 (est. £5,000-7,000)
 New record for the artist (previous record stood at £12,500)
 Leach opened the Leach Pottery in St Ives with Shoji Hamada where he united the classical pottery traditions of Asia, including the taste for imperfections and the handmade, with those of English slipware potters and early 20th Century abstraction. The bold calligraphic brushwork of the “Leaping Fish” motif is among Leach’s most iconic work and the Leach Pottery is still open today.

Harold Gilman, Interior (Mrs Mounter), 1917
 5 bidders
 Painting made £485,000 / $602,904 (est. £150,000-250,000)
 A new record for the artist (previous record stood at £270,650)
 In 1917 this was a new kind of subject, a suburban lodger, lost in thought in a nondescript room in
an ordinary London house. For art to be modern, artists like Gilman demanded that it should be concerned with the everyday life of the city.

Winifred Nicholson, St Ives Harbour, 1928
 6 bidders
 Painting made £245,000 / $304,560 (est: £50,000-70,000)
 New record for the artist (previous record stood at £168,000)
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Glacier (Bone), 1950
 Painting made £106,250 / $132,079 (est. £50,000-70,000)
 A new record for the artist (previous record stood at £84,500)
 Glacier (Bone) is a beautiful example of one of the series of ‘Glacier Abstractions’ paintings Barns-
Graham produced following a trip to the Grindelwald Glacier in Switzerland
Henry Lamb, Study for Portrait of Lytton Strachey, 1913
 Painting made £100,000 / $124,310 (est. £25,000-35,000)
 A new record for the artist (previous record stood at £72,000)

part_1_bowie_collector_top_ten.pdf

part_1_fact_sheet.pdf