Price Check! Here’s What Sold—and for How Much—at Frieze London and Frieze Masters 2019

Here's what art dealers say they sold at the London fair (though watch out for number-fudging and other kinds of general sneakiness).

Frieze London in 2019. Photo: Linda Nylind, courtesy of Frieze.

You wouldn’t have known that Britain was in the midst of an existential and political crisis from the activity inside the two posh Frieze tents in Regent’s Park last week. Dealers were doing serious business, if not at the same price points or level of verve we have seen in previous, flusher years. In general, galleries went heavy on painting and domestic-sized work—with a few notable exceptions, this was not the moment to take risks or introduce an entirely unknown figure to the art world.

To capture a snapshot of all the commerce taking place under the big white tops, we combed through reported and published sales from the more than 200 participating galleries. Nota bene: Sales reports are notoriously slippery in the art world. Some purchases may have been finalized long before the fair, while others might only be handshake deals, still waiting on paperwork and cash. But prices themselves are more reliably telling, providing a snapshot of where individual artists stand in the matrix of the art market today. Even here, of course, there is room for slippage: Some dealers occasionally offer inflated figures, while others prefer to report ranges or the “asking price” to obscure the actual selling price, or to cover up favorable treatment that one buyer may have received over another.

We did not include reported sales unaccompanied by a price or price range in our list, so the galleries that tend to disclose figures are disproportionately represented here. Pace was uncharacteristically tight-lipped this year and declined to disclose prices, but did say that works by Loie Hollowell, Adrian Ghenie, William Monk, Song Dong, Adam Pendleton, Prabhavathi Meppayil, Nigel Cooke, Brent Wadden, Nina Katchadourian, and Sam Gilliam were sold during the VIP previews. Also worth noting: Gagosian’s solo show of Sterling Ruby sold out, with works priced around $325,000 each.

Other notable sales without prices attached included 89-year-old Jagoda Buić’s textiles at Frieze Masters, which reportedly sold out at Richard Saltoun after Tate acquired one for its collection. The London-based ArtAncient Gallery also sold a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite for an undisclosed price.

See below for a round-up of sales from both Frieze London (where none other than Rihanna popped in over the weekend) and Frieze Masters, which focuses on art made before 2000. All prices below have been sorted by medium and price and converted to USD (rounded to the nearest hundred) for ease of reading.

 

PAINTINGS

Hauser & Wirth at Frieze London, 2019. Courtesy artists & estates, Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alex Delfanne.

$6.5 million: Cy Twombly’s Untitled [New York City] (1968) at Hauser & Wirth

$5 million: Philip Guston, Arm (1979) at Hauser & Wirth

$3.8 million: Kerry James Marshall, Car Girl 2 (2019) at David Zwirner to a major museum

$3.4 million: Mark Bradford, A Molded Pool of Stories (2019) at Hauser & Wirth

$1.5 million: A Neo Rauch work at David Zwirner

$1.2 million: Georg Baselitz, Nicht, nicht verloren (2019) at Thaddaeus Ropac

$1.2 million: Abel Grimmer’s The Tower of Babel (1604) at Johnny van Haeften Gallery

$988,000: Mario Schifano’s Senza titolo (Untitled) (1961) at Hauser & Wirth

$575,000: Elizabeth Peyton, Kiss (2019) at Thaddaeus Ropac

$511,000: Mimmo Rotella, Untitled (1961) at Hauser & Wirth

$425,000: Lorna Simpson, Darkling (2019) at Hauser & Wirth

$416,000: Günther Förg, Untitled (2007) at Hauser & Wirth

$400,000: Oscar Murillo, manifestation (2018–19) at David Zwirner

$375,000: Charles Gaines, Numbers and Trees: Palm Trees Series 1, Tree #3, Julia B. at Hauser & Wirth

$360,000: Jan Josef van Goyen’s The Ferry (1625) at Johnny van Haeften Gallery

$350,000–400,000: A work by Kenneth Noland at Almine Rech

$350,000–450,000 each: All four of Stanley Whitney’s paintings at Lisson Gallery, including Four Corners (2019)

$329,000: Günther Förg, Untitled (2006) at Hauser & Wirth

$325,000: Jack Whitten, The American Dialogue (1989) at Hauser & Wirth

$300,000: Jenny Holzer’s Harm to Ongoing Matter (2019) at Hauser & Wirth

$296,000: Gastone Novelli, Liuba (1961) at Hauser & Wirth

$250,000–300,0000: A work by Jannis Kounellis at Almine Rech

$190,000: Gastone Novelli, Nirvana Needed (1967) at Hauser & Wirth

$180,000: Mario Schifano, Palma (1967) at Hauser & Wirth

$175,000: Jack Whitten, Space Sifter (2014) at Hauser & Wirth

$175,000: Luchita Hurtado, Untitled (1975) at Hauser & Wirth

$175,000: Jenny Holzer, Understanding (2016–19) at Hauser & Wirth

$165,000: Rita Ackermann, Mama-MJ with Gypsy kids in Brazil (2019) at Hauser & Wirth

$160,000: Enrico Baj, Trillalì-Trillalà (1956) at Hauser & Wirth

$150,000: Claire Tabouret’s Reception Hall (2019) at Almine Rech Gallery

$150,000: Mimmo Rotella, Untitled (1961) at Hauser & Wirth

$150,000: A painting by Harold Ancart at David Zwirner

$110,000: Jack Whitten, Cultural Artifacts II (2013) at Hauser & Wirth

$100,000: A Lisa Yuskavage work at David Zwirner

$100,000: Imi Knoebel’s Anima Mundi 57-3, 2019 at Thaddaeus Ropac

$90,000: Sheila Hicks’s Inner Truth (2019) at Alison Jacques Gallery

$90,000: Jacqueline Humphries, Untitled (2019) at Modern Art

$85,000: Lois Dodd, Total Eclipse-10:45pm (1996) at Modern Art

$80,000: Anj Smith, Hidden Activities (of the Midnight Zone) at Hauser & Wirth

$80,000: Richard Aldrich, Untitled (2010) at Modern Art

$71,000: Carla Accardi, Rosaverde (Pinkgreen) (1971) at Hauser & Wirth

$65,000–200,000 each: Six large paintings by Jonathan Lasker at Timothy Taylor Gallery

$60,000: Sanya Kantarovsky, No Eyes (2019) at Modern Art

$50,000: Betty Parsons’s Radiant Reach (1978) at Alison Jacques Gallery

$50,000: A painting by Claudia Comte at Johann Koenig

$50,000 each: Martha Jungwirth’s Untitled (2011) and Am Wienfluss (2013) at Modern Art

$45,000: A painting by Dennis Hopper at Franklin Parrasch Gallery

$43,000: Graham Little’s Man and Dog (2019) at Alison Jacques Gallery

$43,000 each: Three paintings by Roy Oxlade at Alison Jacques Gallery

$40,000–85,000 each: All 10 paintings in the solo presentation of Ivan Morley’s work at David Kordansky

$40,000: Pieter Schoolwerth’s Random Winner (2019) at Miguel Abreu Gallery

$33,000: Michaela Eichwald’s Theater (2019) at Maureen Paley

$30,000: Betty Parsons’s Buzzing (1965) at Alison Jacques Gallery

$24,600: Ian Kiaer’s Endnote Tooth, Plan (Blue) (2018) at Alison Jacques Gallery

$12,400 each: Three new paintings by Joy Labinjo, including A Celebration of Sorts (2019), at Tiwani Contemporary

$12,000 each: Three paintings by Jonathan Lasker at Timothy Taylor Gallery

$9,000 each: Ten new works from Alvaro Barrington’s “Date Paintings” series at Thaddaeus Ropac

 

SCULPTURES & INSTALLATIONS

ArtAncient, Frieze Masters 2019. Photo by Mark Blower. Courtesy of Mark Blower / Frieze.

$1.3 million: A vase by Keith Haring at Skarstedt Gallery

$1.2 million: The total sum for four bronze sculptures by William Kentridge at Goodman Gallery

$900,000: John Chamberlain’s COULDYOUWOULDYOU (1991) at Hauser & Wirth

$659,000: Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Tavolo con tavaglia bianca (1982) at Galleria Continua

$250,000: A Pieta dating to ca. 1390 at Sam Fogg

$200,000: Sarah Sze’s mixed-media work Hindsight (2019) at Victoria Miro

$250,000: The Master of Benedictine Pope’s The Death of The Virgin (ca. 1480) at Sam Fogg

$195,000: Roni Horn’s White Dickinson THE WHOLE OF IMMORTALITY SECRETED IN A STAR (2006–7) at Hauser & Wirth

$132,000: Bharti Kher’s Algorithm for tectonic regroupings and divergent boundaries (2018) at Hauser & Wirth

$85,000: Alex Da Corte’s wall installation Love Will Always Fine You (2019) at Sadie Coles HQ

$85,000: A sculpture by Tony DeLap at Franklin Parrasch Gallery

$66,000–440,000 each: Works including Japanese screens and a pair of large cast-iron basins, among other pieces at Gisèle Croës Gallery

$62,000: A small bronze from 1966 by Naum Gabo at Annely Juda Fine Art

$62,000 combined: Two lower Paleolithic axes at ArtAncient

$61,000: A table by Alicja Kwade at Johann Koenig

$35,000: Max Hooper Schneider’s Frescos (2019) at Maureen Paley

$35,000: Paulo Nimer Pjota’s Opium poppies for 12:00 (2019) at Maureen Paley

$24,600: Ian Kiaer’s fabric work Endnote, ping (2018) at Alison Jacques Gallery

$1,200–6,200 each: Multiple Indian Lingam Stones at Grosvenor Gallery

 

DRAWINGS, PRINTS, & WORKS ON PAPER

kamel mennour, Frieze London 2019. Photo by Linda Nylind. Courtesy Linda Nylind / Frieze.

$600,000 each: Two Picasso worksFemme nue assise et enfant (1960) and Buste d’Homme a la pipe (1969) at Skarstedt Gallery

$225,000: Roni Horn’s Remembered Words — (Sunflower) (2012–13) at Hauser & Wirth

$137,000: Georg Baselitz’s Ohne Titel, (2019) at Thaddaeus Ropac

$125,000 each: A selection of charcoal works on paper by Lee Krasner at Kasmin

$120,000: Robert Longo’s Study of First Elephant (2019) at Thaddaeus Ropac

$99,000: Armando Testa’s Superga (1947) at Galleria Continua

$90,000: Robert Longo’s Study of SU Ukraine (2019) at Thaddaeus Ropac

$62,000–123,000 each: A set of works by Cy Twombly and a work by Roy Lichtenstein at Shapero Rare Books

$25,000–45,000 each: Three works on paper by Dorothea Tanning at Alison Jacques Gallery

$12,000–31,000 each: 15 works by Michael Craig-Martin at Cristea Roberts Gallery


Follow Artnet News on Facebook:


Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.