Top 10 Lots Fetch $177 Million at London’s Postwar and Contemporary Art Evening Sales

It's easy to get jaded when you follow postwar and contemporary art auctions. ("Disappointing," a dealer muttered last November when a painting sold for $600,000 at Phillips in New York—three times the average annual salary of a U.S. pediatrician.) The top prices at this year's London evening auctions at both Sotheby's and Christie's, however, were enough to jolt even the most complacent art observer. One hundred twenty-two artworks fetched about $366.7 million in sales.

The biggest sale of the week was at Sotheby's, when a painting by Gerhard Richter sold for $46.3 million. At times, bidding for the almost 10-foot-tall Abstraktes Bild felt more like a tennis match than an art auction, as people literally gasped, oohed, and, finally, clapped.