A Spark of Life in Art Market : Auction: Spirited bidding by key collectors including record producer David Geffen punctuates the sale at Sotheby’s.

NEW YORK —  The contemporary art market is down--way down from its all-time high in the fall of 1989--but it isn’t out. All it takes to infuse life in the market is bargain prices for good material and a couple of mega-collectors from Los Angeles.

That seemed to be the message at Sotheby’s big fall sale of 82 contemporary artworks on Wednesday night. While 40 items were sold below the auction house’s estimated prices and 19 lots did not find buyers, competition was spirited and the atmosphere was charged with unaccustomed excitement.

Record producer David Geffen made a big splash when he bought Willem de Kooning’s 1953 Abstract Expressionist painting, “Woman,” for $3.4 million, the second highest price in the auction. That sum approached Sotheby’s top estimate of $3.5 million but fell far below the record $20.68 million paid in 1989 for De Kooning’s “Interchange.”

Geffen also came close to snagging the top lot, Jasper Johns’ “Jubilee,” a 1959 painting that challenges perceptions of color by presenting stenciled names of hues on a field of black, white and gray brush strokes. Geffen’s top bid of $4.4 million was exceeded by an anonymous telephone bidder who paid $4.95 million for the painting, just short of the $5-million high estimate.

The Johns was sold by creditors of Swedish real estate magnate Hans Thulin, who paid record prices for art at auction in the late ‘80s but purchased “Jubilee” privately for an undisclosed sum. Thulin was forced to liquidate his collection after his business empire collapsed.

Geffen melted into the fashionable crowd on the previous night at Christie’s and bought relatively low-priced works through New York dealer Larry Gagosian. But the entertainment industry mogul turned up at Sotheby’s wearing a white painter’s hat with the bill turned backwards and he plunged into the action. Sitting with Gagosian again, he did his own bidding by raising his blue paddle during the De Kooning competition and nodding his head as the Johns price escalated.

If his jaunty get-up looked out of place, Geffen was clearly welcome at the auction. “He can wear anything he wants,” auctioneer John L. Marion told the press after the sale.

Another Los Angeles collector, housing and financial services magnate Eli Broad, appeared trim and dapper as usual, but he made an uncharacteristic move by paying the auction’s third highest price of $935,000 for Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein’s Mondrian-like painting, “Non Objective I.”

“It would have cost $3 million two years ago. I was delighted to get it for $935,000,” Broad said. The record for a Lichtenstein is $6 million, set in 1990 for “Kiss II.”

Broad attends major auctions regularly, but he has resisted inflated prices, and he keeps a sharp eye out for such good buys as the Lichtenstein. “I don’t think prices have bottomed out yet,” he said as the sale was closing.

Auction house officials generally disagree with that assessment. However, Lucy Mitchell-Innes, head of Sotheby’s contemporary art department, admitted to spending most of the day on the telephone persuading consigners to lower reserve prices for the Wednesday night auction, in the wake of Christie’s sluggish sale.

The effort appeared to pay off. Sales came to a total of $24.36 million--well below Sotheby’s estimated range of $33.4 million to $42.7 million but more than Christie’s $15.35-million take on Tuesday.

Sotheby’s auction seemed to offer little chance of excitement earlier this week. Art dealers were exchanging such jokes as, “It’s so quiet, I can hear the prices falling” and “It’s so quiet, I can hear my overhead.”

But from the moment that Marion sold the first lot, Gerhard Richter’s “Mustang-Staffel,” the gloom lifted. The realistic painting of military aircraft brought $462,000--considerably more than its high estimate of $250,000.

“We’ll see how long this holds up,” Marion quipped after the gavel fell on the Richter. The auctioneer seemed to be on a roll as he proceeded to sell eight of nine pieces of German contemporary art from the collection of Helmut Anton and Margot Kraetz of Frankfurt. “Ludwig Richter on the Way to Work,” an Expressionistic painting by Georg Baselitz, more than doubled its high estimate of $450,000 when it was sold for $1.1 million, a record for the artist.

Records were also set for American artists Robert Gober ($181,500 for a sculpture, “The Split Up Conflicted Sink”) and Jack Tworkov ($71,500 for an abstract painting, “Queen II”).

Sales slowed as collectors and dealers balked at prices they still consider too high, however. Several big-ticket items--by Francis Bacon, Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg--failed to find buyers. Rauschenberg’s “Small Red Painting,” valued at $1.8 million to $2.2 million, was not sold during the auction, but Sotheby’s announced that Acquavella Gallery in New York bought it for $1.25 million immediately after the sale.

About 30 pieces in the auction were reportedly consigned by advertising executive Charles Saatchi. The works were not identified, but auction house officials said that Saatchi, whose global advertising empire has been hit hard in the recession, was realistic about the market and that he was pleased with results of the sale.

Once again, the Japanese who dominated the market during the boom of the late ‘80s were conspicuously absent. They were replaced by Europeans and Americans who seemed far more interested in bargains that in sparking a new period of speculation.

“A lot of old friends were back in the competition again,” Marion said. “I was very, very delighted with the sale.”

Wednesday night’s auction and a sale of lower-priced contemporary works, expected to bring between $13 million and $18 million, on Thursday at Sotheby’s closed a two-week round of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art auctions. With nearly $250 million worth of art on the block, Sotheby’s and Christie’s had sold only around half of that by Thursday morning, but sales represented an improvement over last spring’s season.

The auction houses are already gearing up for next spring as they woo consigners and prepare them for the realities of a market that continues to seek a level of stability.