Peter Doig’s Ski Jacket (1994) led Christie’s 20th/21st century London evening sale on October 15th, selling for £14.27 million ($19.13 million), well above its £8 million ($10.72 million) high estimate. The 61-lot evening sale totaled £106.92 million ($142.85 million), a 30% increase on the total achieved last year and the auction house’s highest total for a Frieze Week sale in seven years. All prices include fees
“We entered the week with confidence, with carefully priced material, and witnessed a spirited and well-attended public view at King Street,” Katharine Arnold and Keith Gill, vice chairmen at Christie’s Europe, said in a joint statement. “With great energy in the room, tonight’s auction presented a diverse selection of works united by quality, reflecting Christie’s ongoing commitment from our team of world-class specialists, and we were delighted to receive the enthusiasm and trust of our clients.”
Doig’s Ski Jacket came to auction as part of the collection of Ole Faarup, who died last March at the age of 90. Works from the collection on sale also included Chris Ofili’s Blossom (1997), which sold for £2.12 million ($2.84 million), and Doig’s Country Rock (1998–99), which sold for £9.21 million ($12.34 million). Country Rock was the second most expensive lot of the night.
Ski Jacket was conceived the same year that Doig was nominated for the Turner Prize. The painting depicts a ski slope rendered in dreamlike pink, blue, and gold colors. It shows crowds of tiny skiers among a lodge town as if captured in a hazy, aging photograph..The last time the work was seen by the public was in Denmark at the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg in 2012.
Doig’s most expensive auction record is currently held by Swamped (1990), which sold for $39.86 million in November 2021 at Christie’s.
Lucian Freud’s Self-portrait Fragment (ca. 1956) was anticipated to be the leading sale, estimated at £8 million–£12 million ($10.72 million–$16.08 million). However, the painting fell beneath its low estimate, selling for £7.6 million ($10.18 million). Instead, it landed as the third most expensive lot of the night. The artist’s most valuable auction record is $86.3 million for the painting Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau) (1981–83), which was sold at a Christie’s auction in November 2022
Following the two Doig paintings and Freud’s self-portrait, the top sales of the night are as follows:
- Gerhard Richter’s Tulpen (Tulips) (1995) sold for £6.15 million ($8.21 million), above its £5 million ($6.7 million) high estimate.
- Paul Cezanne’s Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier (1890) sold for £5.54 million ($7.42 million), within its £4 million–£6 million ($5.36 million–$8.04 million) estimate.
- Paul Signac’s La colline de la Californie (1959) sold for £3.71 million ($4.97 million), just above its £3 million ($4.02 million) low estimate.
- Paula Rego’s Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ (1995) sold for £3.46 million, just above its £3 million ($4.02 million) low estimate.
