High-end flippers fuel art auctions

PETER DOIG's painting of a house in the woods is up for sale. Again. The work returns to Sotheby's in London on Wednesday with an estimate as high as £18 million (S$33 million), the top lot at the contemporary art evening auction. It has been just two years since Christie's sold it for £11.3 million and it will be the work's fifth auction appearance in 16 years.

The Architect's Home in the Ravine is resold so frequently that one dealer calls it a "frequent flier", But this week it's got plenty of company. Dozens of pieces at the 20th and 21st century art sales in London are being resold in hopes of quick profits. At the evening auctions at Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips, about 40 lots, or 23 per cent, of the offerings, have been bought privately or at auction in the past six years, according to catalogues.

Andy Warhol's Six Self Portraits, which led Christie's auction on Tuesday, was purchased in 2014. Works by other blue-chip artists with a global collector base, such as Louise Bourgeois, Rudolph Stingel and Martin Kippenberger, are also returning to market.