LONDON—Contemporary powerhouse Christie’s had a surprisingly weak evening auction of postwar and contemporary art during Frieze Week, registering just £23,020,650 ($36,833,040). That tally came in on the low end of pre-sale expectations of £21,030,000-29,890,000 ($33.5-47.8 million).

Forty-five of the 61 lots in this sale found new homes for a buy-in rate of 26 percent by lot and 13 percent by value. The relatively anemic outcome compares to last October’s toppier statistics of £38 million ($59.9 million), with 11 percent unsold by lot and eight percent by value. Tonight, four lots sold for over a million pounds and 10 made over a million dollars. Four artist records were set.

The evening got off to a promising start with lot two, Idris Kahn’s massive triptych ode to German photo duo the Bechers, “Every… Bernd and Hilla Becher Prison Type Gasholders” (2004), which sold to a telephone bidder for a record £181,250 ($290,000) (est. £60-80,0000). That sale was followed by Saatchi-bred artist Jonathan Wateridge’s cinematic “Jungle Scene with Plane Wreck” (2007), which fetched a record-setting £313,250 ($501,250) (est. £100-150,000).

A healthy price was also achieved by New Yorker Fred Tomaselli and his “Organism,” a 97-by-77-inch photo collage with leaves, resin, and acrylic on canvas from 2005 that hauled in £735,650 ($1,177,040) (est. £400-600,000). The sales beat moved on with Mark Grotjahn’s optically dizzying colored pencil on paper, “Untitled Butterfly (Black + Cream-cicle) #682” (2007), which sold to a telephone for £457,250 ($731,600) (est. £200-300,000).

Even an unusual-to-market and early Gerhard Richter, “5 Turen II (5 Doors II)” — a minimally painted yet massive five-part oil-on-canvas work featuring realistically rendered opened doors at various angles — elicited strong phone bidding and sold for £2,169,250 ($3,470,800) (est. £1.5-2 million).

An “Untitled” Cy Twombly graphite, color pencil, wax crayon, and ballpoint pen-on-paper graffito from 1964 sold to London’s Helly Nahmad for £361,250 ($578,000) (est. £350-550,000). In the sculptural realm, Alexander Calder’s jumbo hanging mobile, “Hello Allentown,” in painted sheet metal and wire from 1976 — the year of his death — sold to an absentee bidder (auction parlance for someone leaving a bid with the auctioneer) for £1,609,250 ($2,574,800) (est. £1.2-1.8 million). That particular Calder last sold at Sotheby’s New York in November 2004 for $388,800, illuminating how very far his market has appreciated.

A crudely expressionist Martin Kippenberger oil-on-canvas self-portrait, widely exhibited in gallery and museum exhibitions, “Untitled (From the Series Hand-Painted Pictures)” (1992), sold for a record £3,177,250 ($5,083,600) (est. £2.5-3.5 million). On a more modest scale, one of Kippenberger’s excellent colored pencil sketches on hotel stationary of a man in suspenders with arms clasped behind his back, “Untitled” (1990), sold to private dealer Philippe Segalot for £217,250 ($347,650) (est. £70-100,000).

These were the highlights. Less than midway through the sale, however, the atmosphere flagged and bidding diminished to what seemed like a trickle, as if fair fatigue and hunger for dinner were taking over. As in Phillips de Pury’s evening sale on Wednesday, big names found no takers, as offerings by Richard Prince, Andreas Gursky (two), Paul McCarthy (two), Anish Kapoor, Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, and  Zhang  Huan hit the buy-in bin. It would be interesting to compare how these artists’ works are faring at Frieze.

Of course, there were patches of brightness and brio. Miquel Barcelo’s big and atmospheric mixed-media bullfight scene on canvas “Areneros y muleros” (1990) sold to New York/London dealer Nicholas Maclean of Eykyn Maclean for £2,057,250 ($3,291,600) (est. £2-3 million).

Private dealer Patricia Marshall was also happy with her astute purchase of Christopher Wool’s “Untitled” (1989) alkyd-and-acrylic-on-aluminum composition with six identically posed black figures on a white ground, which she snagged for £337,250 ($539,600) (est. £300-500,000). “It’s a good price for an amazing piece,” said Marshall as she dashed out of the salesroom.

Still, even some of the lots that successfully sold performed under-par compared to previous outings, such as the Chris Ofili “Untitled Diptych” (19990) with elephant dung supports, which sold tonight to a telephone bidder for £937,250 ($1,499,600) (est. £800,000-1.2 million). It last sold at Christie’s New York to a European collector in May 2011 for a whopping $2,322,500.

Similarly, Robert Indiana’s big “Love” polychrome aluminum sculpture from 1966/1999 sold for £741,250 ($1,186,000) (est. £500-600,000). It previously sold at Christie’s New York in November 2008, in the midst of crashing financial markets, for $1,314,500.

It is still too early to draw any concrete conclusions from a so-so sale, especially with Sotheby’s contemporary evening auction coming up on Friday. But it was rather simple to sum the evening up: In the words of Paris dealer and frequent auction player John Sayegh-Belchatowski, “Honestly, the auction was not good.”

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Christie's made some amends for this lackluster auction with the 44-lot “Italian Sale,” comprised of offerings by Italy's greatest postwar artists, from Boetti to Pistoletto, which immediately followed it.

Forty-one lots sold for a svelte buy-in rate of seven percent by lot and four percent by value. The sale realized £18,162,650 ($25,526,640), comfortably midway between the low and high estimate (est. £14,455,000-20,385,000/$23.1-32.6 million). Piero Manzoni's pleated-kaolin-on-canvas "Achrome" (ca. 1959) topped the list at £2,617,250 ($3,680,000) (est. £1.8-2.5 million).

To see some of the lots from Christie's London's postwar and contemporary sale, click on the slideshow.