Sothebys : Parts I & II of Shake It Up total £8.7m for Museo MATE, Peru

"I'm so pleased to have raised this fantastic endowment for Museo MATE, to allow for greater opportunity and impact for art and culture in my country, Peru. Many thanks to Olly Barker and the amazing team at Sotheby's for helping us elevate our commitment to a goal very close to my heart"

"Mario is a very special combination - someone with a fantastically well-honed eye, who believes passionately in the cause of MATE, and who has - over the last few days - parted with works that have informed his world in order to support that cause. He has always said that he is attracted to art that challenges him and that, at the same time, challenges his own approach to image making. It has been a real thrill to see collectors from around the world respond with such interest to the art that has informed Mario's visual world - a testimony not just to a great eye, but also to a great artist." - Oliver Barker, Chairman, Sotheby's Europe

The legendary Peruvian photographer Mario Testino shook up Sotheby's in London this week as thousands attended an exhibition and auction organised to benefit the Museo MATE in Lima, Peru (more information on MATE can be found here). Parts I & II of Shake It Up totalled £8.7m, establishing eleven artist auction records in the process.

An immersive exhibition, designed by Testino, captivated visitors to Sotheby's New Bond Street galleries, with over 1500 visitors attending on the first day alone. Testino is a global collector in the broadest sense with no fewer than 45 different nationalities represented in the collection. This was echoed in the global interest the sale attracted, with participants from some 43 countries.

Tomma Abts, Jacqueline Humphries, Mark Leckey, Cathy Wilkes, Michael Dean, José Damasceno, David Musgrave, Nuno de Campos, Lukas Duwenhögger, Caragh Thuring, Geerton Verheus

Auction Highlights

Michaël Borremans, Two, 2004 Oil on canvas

Sold for £872,750 (Estimate: £200,000-300,000)

The highest price was achieved for the enigmatic double- portrait Two, 2004 by Belgian painter Michaël Borremans, which sold for £872,750 following a prolonged bidding battle in the saleroom. Bordering on the surreal and brushing with the perverse, in Two we behold the subtle enigma of Michaël Borremans' painting. The master of the open ended narrative, Borremans practices a quiet form of surrealism that imbues itself in a not-quite-as-they-seem aesthetic. Drawing on art historical references, the Belgian painter refers to Casper David Friedrich, to Vermeer and Velázquez.

Richard Prince, Untitled (Girlfriend), 1993 Ektacolor print

Sold for £554,750 (Estimate: 250,000-350,000)

"Richard Prince is somebody who has influenced me a lot in the way that I think", Testino says. "The idea of appropriation for me was a very new thing, because I've always been quite respectful about other people's property, but what I've realised is that he made us look at things that we weren't looking at properly and challenged us to look at things differently".

Tauba Auerbach, Untitled, 2010 Acrylic on canvas

Sold for £824,750 (Estimate: £600,000-800,000)

Executed in 2010, Tauba Auerbach's mesmerising Untitled is at the forefront of contemporary painting. The American painter's trompe l'oeil paintings have been championed as one of the most innovative developments in painting in the new millennium. Begun in 2009, these luminous, delicately textured works operate in the space between painting and sculpture, an indeterminate area that the artist has coined the '2.5th dimension'.

Adriana Varejão, Blue Sauna, 2003 Oil on canvas

Sold for £488,750 (Estimate: £400,000-600,000)

The cool, contemporary tile interiors and colour gradations in Varejão's Blue Sauna reflect Testino's own explorations of the formal qualities of image making; light, colour, and composition. "In the sauna paintings, I deal with very classical topics of painting

- paint, colour, tone, perspective, and so on. There is an ambiguous atmosphere, a suspended narrative

in these paintings", Varejão said in an interview with the Huffington Post. Always deeply connected and engaged with the artists whose work he collects, in 2017 Testino filmed a video tour of Varejão's Rio de Janeiro studio for his MiraMira.tv website, exploring the artist's continued fascination with ceramic materials and traditions.

Tomma Abts, Zaarke, 2000 Oil and acrylic on canvas

Sold for £118,750 (Estimate: £25,000-35,000)

The auction opened with a flurry of bids for Zaarke, 2000, a painting by the German-born Turner Prize winning artist Tomma Abts, which sold for £118,750, over seven times its pre-sale estimate - establishing a new record price the artist. Each of Abts' paintings are built up over multiple layers and many sittings. Working on more than one work at a time, canvases can take years of reflection to complete. There is only one rule that Abts' brings to her practice: size. Each canvas is consistently sized at 48 by 38 centimetres.

Jacqueline Humphries, Pile, 2008 Metallic oil and enamel on linen

Sold for £193,750 (Estimate: £40,000-60,000)

Through the application of swathes of silver and black paint, Humphries' large-scale abstract canvases create dramatic contrasts and light effects. The price of £193,750 achieved in Part I of the 'Shake It Up' sale more than doubled the previous record for the artist at auction.

Oil on canvas and lino in wooden hinged frames, in 3 parts Sold for £137,500 (Estimate: 12,000-18,000)

In Part II of the auction, an artist record was set for this rare piece by the German-born, Istanbul-based artist Lukas Duwenhögger. The work attracted huge interest among collectors, selling for over 10 times its low estimate.

Founded by Mario Testino in 2012, MATE (pronounced mAH-teh) aims to bring Peruvian artists and culture to worldwide attention, while offering the best of international contemporary art and photography to audiences in Lima. MATE facilitates this through a dynamic programme of exhibitions, residencies, and events, alongside a permanent display of work by Mario Testino. MATE is committed to bringing the centre's work to a wide audience through guided tours, workshops and talks, as well as offering training and resources as part of this expanding education programme. For more information, visit MATE's website here.

About Mario Testino

Mario Testino OBE is widely regarded as one of the most influential fashion and portrait photographers of our times. His photographs have been published internationally in magazines such as Vogue, V Magazine and Vanity Fair. Alongside his 40-year practice as a photographer, Testino has realised a body of work as a creative director, guest editor, museum founder, art collector/collaborator and entrepreneur.

Born in Lima in 1954 to a traditional Catholic family, remote from the worlds of fashion and Hollywood, Testino moved from Peru to London in 1976. It was during apprenticeships at the studios of John Vickers and Paul Nugent that he made his first attempts as a photographer, inspired by how photography masters documented the society of their times: "I tried to emulate the English - the Mitford sisters, Stephen Tennant and Cecil Beaton." His career began tentatively with a commission to photograph a girl's haircut for British Vogue. The girl in the picture was stylist Lucinda Chambers and the shoot sparked a personal friendship and professional partnership that has lasted to this day. Testino's is an artistic vocabulary that transgresses genders, mixes masculinity and femininity and suggests sensuality rather than sexuality. Suzy Menkes, Vogue's International Editor explains, "Testino's skill is first and foremost to catch the moment and to bring out the humanity in his subjects."

The National Gallery's 2002 Portraits exhibition attracted more visitors than any other show in the museum's history at the time. Charles Saumarez Smith, then director of the NPG, compared Testino