July 3 (Bloomberg) -- Warhols, Rothkos and Hirsts are among the works piling up at Christie's International as art pours in for the November sales from buyers eager to benefit from a jump in prices, said Chief Executive Officer Ed Dolman.

Christie's, the world's largest auction house, already has ``several hundred million dollars'' of art for the autumn sales in New York, typically the year's biggest, Dolman said in a June 27 telephone interview.

``We have never had as much consigned by this time of year before,'' he said. ``Everybody realizes the market is very strong and they want to sell into it.''

A 10-year quadrupling of contemporary-art prices has drawn sellers to Christie's and rival Sotheby's, just as a global stock rally created new buyers, from hedge fund manager Steven Cohen to Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau and Georgia's Boris Ivanishvili. Christie's auctions totaled $4.7 billion last year, more than double the $2.3 billion in 1999.

Christie's sold 237 million pounds ($478 million) of impressionist to contemporary art in London last month, close to its top estimate. The company aims to sell 52 million pounds of old masters this week. Dolman, 48, a soft-voiced man with sandy hair, has been CEO since 1999, the year after the French billionaire Francois Pinault bought the London-based auction house.

The wealth of millionaires rose 11 percent to $37.2 trillion last year, according to Capgemini SA and Merrill Lynch & Co. Collector Noam Gottesman, co-founder of GLG Partners LP, Europe's third-largest hedge fund manager, stands to gain $625 million with two fellow managing directors after the company lists in New York through a combination with Freedom Acquisition Holdings Inc.

Contemporary Thirst

``That level of wealth is having an impact on prices for the best art,'' Dolman said. ``There has been interest in Rothko and Warhol and we're seeing some on the market. The thirst for living artists' work continues and we have interesting consignments of cutting-edge contemporary work. Hirst is in there.''

Christie's CEO said he has been concerned about signs the art market may be overheating. Contemporary art prices rose 50 percent this year, with Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol tripling or quadrupling their auction records at the New York sales in May.

In London last month, an Auguste Rodin sculpture went for seven times the top estimate. A painting by Eric Bulatov fetched six times its high valuation.

``It's in everybody's interest that we get steady rises in the market so it doesn't get destabilized by fast rises,'' Dolman said. ``If sellers have unrealistic expectations, you eventually get stagnation. It's like the housing market. You hear of a house being sold for $21 million, and you try to sell your house for $22 million, and no one buys it.''

Antitrust Case

Dolman spoke from the Center for Creative Leadership in Colorado Springs, where he was meeting with colleagues including art specialists Thomas Seydoux and Guy Bennett, he said.

After being appointed CEO, Dolman led the auction house through a U.S. antitrust case that Christie's and Sotheby's settled in 2002 by agreeing to pay $512 million to clients who said they were cheated in U.S.-based auctions.

Dolman is Christie's chief business getter and keeps together a network in New York, London and Paris run by Marc Porter, Jussi Pylkkanen and Francois Curiel, said Christie's executives. Like Sotheby's CEO William Ruprecht, Dolman attends the big sales.

Still, Christie's November impressionist sales are unlikely to beat last year's $491.5 million, which was boosted by four Gustav Klimt pictures that sold for about $192 million, Dolman said.

Giving Guarantees

In June, Christie's and Sotheby's together sold $883.1 million of art in London, 51 percent more than a year ago. The two houses guaranteed about a third of their impressionist evening sales and almost a half of their contemporary sales, said analysts and auctioneers.

Guaranteed minimum prices encourage sellers by transferring the risk of a drop in the market to the auction house. Dolman denied the guarantees are artificially inflating sales.

``The growth in auctions reflects the growth in worldwide wealth and the number of people coming in to buy pictures,'' he said. ``The growth is in the increase in values, rather than the number of lots.''

Privately held Christie's doesn't report revenue or profit, though it releases auction totals twice a year. While first-half numbers aren't available yet, growth was ``significantly above the same period last year,'' when sales rose 39 percent, Dolman said.

Sotheby's, which sold $3.7 billion of art in the whole of last year, said its auctions in the first six months of 2007 rose 41 percent to almost $2.8 billion.

To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in London at lsandler@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 3, 2007 01:08 EDT