Recharged Phillips Soars To New Record On $916.5 Million Sales, Led By Picasso Sleeping Nude Of Muse

Led by Pablo Picasso’s “La Dormeuse” (1932), which fetched £41.9 million ($57.8 million), handily more than double the high estimate of £18 million ($23.2 million), Phillips’ overall 2018 sales rocketed 29% to $916.5 million from $708.8 million in 2017, an all-time record for the global auction house specializing in 20th and 21st century art and design.

“We had a remarkable year in 2018 as all of our categories representing the 20th and 21st centuries performed well. Our decision to move further back into the 20th century by highlighting Modern works paid off handsomely with the extraordinary sales of Pablo Picasso’s ‘La Dormeuse’ and Henri Matisse’s ‘Nu Allongé I,’ among many others,” said Phillips Chairwoman Cheyenne Westphal, the highest-ranking woman in the auction business and one of the most powerful women in the art world.

The masterpiece from Picasso’s 1932 series depicting Marie-Thérèse Walter as a reclining odalisque (a female slave or concubine) was part of Picasso’s personal collection until his death in 1973, when it was inherited by his widow, Jacqueline Roque, and subsequently by her daughter. It was was acquired in 1995 by a European private collector.

The large-scale portrait, sold as the highlight of Phillips’ 20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in London on March 8, 2018, depicts a sleeping Walter, the French model, who was Picasso’s lover from 1927 until about 1935. They began their affair when she she 17 and he was 45 and still living with his first wife, Olga Stepanovna Khokhlova, a Russian ballerina of noble descent. Walter and Picasso had a daughter Maya Widmaier-Picasso, who is now 83 years old. She dedicated much of her life to studying and preserving her father’s legacy.

“The day I met Marie-Thérèse I realized that I had before me what I had always been dreaming about,” the Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet, and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France, said of his young muse.

Last year’s stellar results mark a triumphant touring point for the legendary auctioneer.

Founded in 1796 by Harry Phillips, who had been a clerk to the founder of Christie’s, the auction house attained quick success with Napoléon Bonaparte and disgraced dandy Beau Brummel, who was a fashion trailblazer at the height of his fame, among its early patrons. Harry Phillips died in 1840, and the business was passed to his son William Augustus, who renamed it Phillips & Son, until hiss son-in-law Frederick Neale joined the business is 1882 and it became Phillips, Son & Neale. It was renamed Phillips in the 1970s.

In 1999, a majority stake in the company was sold to London-based multinational private equity and venture capital company 3i, which quickly resold it to French billionaire and art collector Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury-goods company.

Arnault’s flowing success in the Moët & Chandon and Hennessy business couldn’t keep Phillips afloat, and the U.K. operations were sold in 2001 to Bonhams and merged into the Bonhams name, while a few smaller departments were acquired by Simon de Pury and Daniella Luxembourg, trading under the name Phillips de Pury & Company. Swiss art auctioneer and collector de Pury, known as the Mick Jagger of auctions, acquired majority control of the company in 2002, and opened its European headquarters in London in 2008.

Later that year, Mercury Group, one of Russia’s largest retail and real estate conglomerates, acquired it for some $60 million, and De Pury sold his last shares to Mercury in late 2012 and severed ties with company, which regained the Phillips name. Aptly named after the Roman god of commerce, the Mercury Group has led the auction house back to an era of financial gain.

“We also garnered exceptional prices for contemporary art across the board, including for Jean-Michel Basquiat’s ‘Flexible.’ In addition, activity from Asian buyers reached new heights, demonstrating Phillips’s strength in this important part of the world. In 2019, we will focus on continuing to expand our global collector base and improving services to our clients, especially online,” Westphal said.

Westphal anticipates another blockbuster year, as the company plans to move its New York headquarters to a new space at 432 Park Ave.

Sales for the company’s 20th Century and Contemporary Art department leaped 40% to $592.9 million from $421.8 million in 2017.

Phillips March 2018 Evening Sale in London set its own record with £97.8 million ($135.1 million) in sales when, trailing the Picasso, Matisse’s “Nu allongé I,” went for £14,859,000 ($20.5 million), more than double the high estimate. Post-war and contemporary art delivered success in May, when Basquiat’s “Flexible” brought in $45.3 million, a new record for a work offered by the artist’s estate. Phillips set auction records in 2018 for multiple artists, including Robert Motherwell, KAWS, Pat Steir, Tomoo Gokita, and Amy Sillman.

Earlier this month, Phillips and Daata Editions announced a partnership to commission and exhibit two new digital artworks including video, sound, and performance. They will be on display in April alongside a selection of other works from Daata artists, before they go on sale via Daata’s online platform.

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