Buyers from the former Soviet Union and the Middle East were more active than those from the U.S. at Sotheby’s 111.5 million-pound ($199 million) auction of new work by Damien Hirst in London, said art dealers.
Ninety-eight percent of the 223 lots in Sotheby’s Sept. 15 and 16 “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” sale found buyers, generating a total that, with fees, exceeded the estimate of 65 million pounds to 98 million pounds. Twenty-four lots by the U.K. artist sold for more than 1 million pounds, said the auction house, which has its main salerooms in New York. Unusually, it did not release a geographical breakdown of buyers, saying that at this auction it was “proprietary” information. (Bloomberg)