Contemporary and Modern Art Day Sale, Sothebys, London (all prices in pounds)

1. 5 Sean Scullys for the exact same price (31,700), and that price being 20k over estimate seems fishy
   
2. Riley is still vastly under rated
   
3. Vasserly is making a rise in prices, slightly higher then his rise in critical reception
   
4. Great Bacon Study, of a head, close to the time of his Pope peices, for 468k,
   
5. RB Kitaj's recent death has not done anything for his prices
6. Appel is holding solid
   
7. Two v. similar Warhol flowers, same colours, same sizes, minute differences in compostion, sold back to back, one for 144k, one bought in.
   
8. Work similar to the peices sold at the Red Auction, went for a tenth, the wide differences b/w basically the same hirst dot still confuses me
   
9. As for Graffiti---i am mildy pleased that Faile is getting a bit of the Banksy blowback, tehy have a much more interesting, deeper and more wide reaching style, adn are masterful bricolouers.
10. Five Banksys sold, for prices ranging from 65k to 650k
11. China is doing well, no peics that came from there went unsold, and msot went for more then the YBA work, Hirst expected
    
12. Has anyone shown Peyton and Kliminik together, b/c they are bascailly the same artist, (except that Kliminik is more historical, and PEyton is the better painter)
13. Photography did not bomb as badly as earlier in the year, but Untitled Film Still will always sel
14. 1983 Warhol's Toy series, the cheif bargin of his mid 80s work, is catching up with the ladies/gentlemen and knives/guns series
    
15. On Kawara again for low 6 figures
    
16. Schanabels film scucess doesnt seem to have done much for his auction prices
    
17. 47 of 297 bought in: three warhols (the most literally relgious of his jacie series), a de kooning drawing from 1964, a 1990 chiroscou smoked Polke, one of Emins porno qorks, a prince joke painting, an eary Ruff nude, and an ultra minimal ruscha
18. Best price 1.14m for a Wessleman colalged still life
    

Contempary Evening Sale, Sothebys, London (all prices in pound)

1. Evening always has better work, and higher prices, the dichotomy breaks down a bit in times of folly and prosper, and then confirms itself,
2. Best example of this, is the Doig drawings in the day auction and the big Doig painting here, the difference between 65k and 1.06m (for Concerete Cabin, a deftly painted fantasia on wilderness, and modernism) (Though White Creep, a worse and more derritave Alpine study for 1.364 is madness)
   
3. Another is the Head Study, versus Nude Figure with a Mirror, both by Bacon, Nude study going for 19m
4. Gursky sells for high 6 figures, one of Richters Candle works (the Daydream Nation one, goes for 3 times its estimate, at 7.9), warhol breaks 10 but fails to reach 35m, like last season,
   
5. Best Deal of the year, is the Twombly drawing Muses from 1963 for under 1m, its just a matter of time that he is going to start reaching De Kooning prices (another, called Rome, from 1961, is a worse paitning, but people dont seem to like Twombly when he uses white space, or when he engages in the aesthetics of erasure)
   
6. Fontanna, no matter how good he is, has been rocketing a little too fast, once he broke the 1m a couple of years ago, people cannot spend enough on his work.
7. 14 out of 70 Bought in Marlene Dumas Bought in
8. You could have bought masterpeics by Riley, REgo, Peyton, Joan Bitchell, Louise Bourgeious, and Marlene Dumos, for les then hal the price of a decent but not great warhol, or a fairly mediocre Warhol