London’s spring auction season kicked off with a bang at Sotheby’s, where the Modern and Contemporary evening sale tallied £130.6 million ($175 million) across 54 lots. A packed saleroom witnessed a near-perfect sell-through rate, injecting fresh energy into a market long tempered by Brexit, taxes, and global slowdown.
The 4 March sale opened the 2026 European auction calendar with unusually strong attendance. Despite ongoing geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty, bidding remained active throughout, reflecting renewed confidence among collectors. Of the 54 lots offered, 53 sold, with only a single Robert Ryman withdrawn, and the final total fell comfortably within the £96.1–£136.4 million presale estimate, more than doubling last year’s equivalent sale.
A group of four works from billionaire investor Joe Lewis’s collection—whose family trust owns Tottenham Hotspur—was central to the evening, generating £35.8 million, over a quarter of the total. The top lot, Francis Bacon’s Self-Portrait (1972), sold for £16 million with fees, notable for its unusual provenance: gifted to a doctor who treated Bacon after a 1970s bar fight. The most intense bidding unfolded over Leon Kossoff’s Children’s Swimming Pool, Autumn Afternoon (1971), which reached £5.2 million, setting a new auction record for the School of London artist.
Some works saw more cautious interest. Lucio Fontana paintings from another private collection sold at or near their lower estimates, with one high-profile Concetto spaziale canvas going to a third-party guarantor. A Jean-Michel Basquiat, initially misprocessed due to a computer error, ultimately sold well below its presale expectations.
Overall, the sale highlighted collectors’ preference for established names and historically significant works, with nearly three-quarters of lots created before 2000 and ultra-contemporary artists largely absent. Dealers and specialists left encouraged, noting strong competition for high-quality works and the impact of prominent single-owner collections.
Whether this momentum continues will become clearer with Phillips and Christie’s evening sales later in the week. These results will reveal if London’s market is entering sustained recovery or experiencing a brief surge within a fragile landscape.
