Auctioneers eye $1 billion haul in London's summer art sales

With an Atlantic tailwind from May auctions in New York, in which the two biggest auction houses sold art pieces totaling more than $2 billion, many eyes are focused on major sales which began this week in London, sales which may see prices soar again to dizzying heights, Reuters has reported.

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The big winner in New York was Picasso?s ?Les femmes d?Alger (Version ?O?)? which set the record at $179.4 million at Christie?s for the most expensive artwork ever sold.

In three days of sales Christie?s also became the first auction house to sell more than $1 billion worth of art. Adding in Sotheby?s sales, the total topped $2 billion.

?We?ve entered into a phase which I really think is a masterpiece market,? Christie?s Katharine Arnold, who is running the post-war and contemporary art evening sale on June 30, said. Featuring paintings by Francis Bacon, Yves Klein and Gerhard Richter, the 76 lots are estimated to fetch $132-187 million.

Not to be outdone, Sotheby?s is heralding its July 1 evening sale as ?London?s highest valued auction of contemporary art.?

Arnold said the skyrocketing prices for fine art being fetched at auction were bringing more such works to market.

?There are art works in private collections which are just starting to move, some objects that have been within families for 60-plus years,? she said.

Among those are works by Anglo-Irish painter Bacon, one of whose diptychs featuring his lover George Dyer and his muse Isabelle Rawsthorne, from 1967, is estimated at 8-12 million pounds at Christie?s.

All told, Bacon could account for around 15 percent or more of the value of all the paintings sold over the next two weeks, indicating how his stock has soared.

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