A U.S. Flag Over London Art Sales

Global art collectors converged on London during the past two weeks for major auctions of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art. These sales are usually dominated by Europeans, but this time, the biggest players came from the U.S.

Confident American bidders lifted the sales to a combined $713 million, with Christie's $457 million total topping Sotheby's roughly $256 million. Overall, the results easily topped the houses' low estimates of $413 million.

New York real-estate developer Sheldon Solow was among the biggest sellers, getting $33.4 million at Christie's Tuesday for his Francis Bacon painting "Portrait of Henrietta Moraes" as well as $26.6 million at the same house on Feb. 7 for his Joan Mir "Painting-Poem."

During the contemporary-art sales at Christie's and Sotheby's earlier this week, American collectors bid on a majority of the priciest pieces on offer, largely over the telephone. Among their winnings: a $15.5 million "Abstract Painting" by Gerhard Richter, an $8.3 million Nicolas de Stael landscape, "Agrigente," and several squiggly lined abstracts by Cy Twombly. An American also took home Shanghai-based Zhang Huan's $228,304 "Ash Head No. 1" sculpture at Sotheby's on Wednesday.

American collectors feel like they're "farther down the road to economic recovery" than their Continental counterparts, said Christie's specialist Amy Cappellazzo. U.S. buyers also capitalized on the dollar's growing strength over most of the past year against the British pound to exert more purchasing power throughout these sales, she added.

New Jersey art adviser Eddie Mishon said his American clients feel "safe" buying art this season. On Wednesday, he bid on several works at Sotheby's before winning a $624,398 untitled oil-on-paper by Willem de Kooning: "I was working it," Mr. Mishon joked of his willingness to compete.

Throughout these sales, collectors gravitated to artists with global fan bases and easy-to-recognize styles like Richter, the German painter best known for creating wildly colorful abstracts by scraping an oversize squeegee across his canvases. Ten Richters came up for sale during the houses' evening sales this week, and nine sold for a combined $45.2 million. Dealers said the artist is enjoying a profile boost this season, thanks to a retrospective on view in London and Berlin.

Collectors and dealers also flocked to Lucio Fontana, the Italian artist who gained international fame in the 1950s by slashing his monochrome canvases with a knife. Right now, his red versions seem to outsell those slashed in paler colors. Christie's got $3.2 million for Fontana's red "Spatial Concept, Expectations" from 1967. Andy Warhol collector Jose Mugrabi also paid $943,963 for a gray 1962 version by Fontana with the same title.

Elsewhere during the contemporary sales, Asian bidders appeared to be branching out. Not only did they pay $2.8 million and $1.6 million for a pair of paintings by Chinese abstract painter Zao Wou-ki, but an Asian telephone bidder also won Berlinde de Bruyckere's $510,643 sculpture of a life-size, stuffed horse crouching on a table, "K 36 (The Black Horse)," a new price record for the artist at auction. Asians also won a $577,250 Damien Hirst Spot painting and a $416,443 photo of Madrid's Prado Museum by Thomas Struth.

Europeans, for their part, fought hard for a new favorite: Christopher Wool, the Chicago-born post-Conceptual artist whose paintings of stenciled words have long been more coveted in the U.S. At Christie's Tuesday, an untitled painting, with black letters spelling out the word "fool," sold to a European for $7.7 million, a new auction record for the artist.