Using a somewhat odd choice of words, Sotheby’s announced today that it and its worldwide head of contemporary art, Tobias Meyer, “have agreed to end his association with Sotheby’s.”

We’ve been hearing news about mounting pressure on Meyer to bring in major consignments for some time now. Weeks before the big fall sales were to begin, it was known that he didn’t have work that could compete with the high caliber offerings (by Francis Bacon, Jeff Koons, and Christopher Wool, among others) that Christie’s was putting up for sale. He finally sealed a deal on a major Warhol, "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)" (1963), which ultimately sold for $105 million. His quest for that work had him flying to Switzerland to woo its owner, then inviting the owner to his Connecticut country house. His summer was apparently so difficult that, recounting the experience to a Newsweek reporter recently, he cried openly.

Even after Meyer landed the Warhol, the contemporary offerings at Christie’s and Sotheby’s were notably unbalanced heading into the fall season, with Christie’s boasting 17 works in its contemporary evening sale with estimates above $10 million, as opposed to six at Sotheby’s (though Sotheby’s ended up with nine eight-figure prices by the end of its evening sale).

Meyer joined Sotheby’s as head of the contemporary art department in London in 1992 after working at Christie’s in London for a few years after college, and five years later he moved to New York to head up the worldwide contemporary department. He has served as principal auctioneer for sales of contemporary art and Impressionist & modern art in New York, and contemporary art sales in London.

Meyer has made a career of selling works for unprecedented amounts. In 1998, soon after returning to New York, he sold Warhol’s “Orange Marilyn,” an iconic 1964 portrait of Marilyn Monroe, for $17 million, a record price for a the artist at the time. His sale of David Smith’s “Cubi XXVIII” (1965) for nearly $24 million in 2005 broke the auction record for that artist. And in May 2004, Meyer set the record for the most expensive work ever sold at auction when Picasso’s 1905 work “Boy with a Pipe” went for $104 million. Last year, he broke that record again when Edvard Munch\'s 1895 pastel of “The Scream” sold for $120 million.

Last week, the contemporary art evening auction at Sotheby’s brought in $380.6 million, the highest grossing sale in the history of the auction house, with the contemporary-sales total, including the day auction, amounting to a record $474.3 million. Nonetheless, the figures still lagged behind those for the comparable Christie’s sales, which brought in $782.4 million.

“Tobias Meyer is a respected figure and has been at the center of signature moments in Sotheby’s history for more than 20 years and we are grateful for all of his contributions,” said chairman and chief executive officer Bill Ruprecht in a statement. “With Tobias’ contract soon expiring, we all agreed it was time to part ways. We wish Tobias nothing but good fortune.”

“I will always cherish my time at Sotheby’s and look forward to the next chapter in my career,” Meyer said in the same statement. “I have had over 20 years of the most marvelous experiences at Sotheby’s where I have made many friends and had wonderful times. I wish Sotheby’s the best of luck in the future.”

Sotheby’s has undergone some other changes in recent months, though it’s not clear if these have any connection to Meyer’s departure. In late September the house announced the appointment of a new chief financial officer, Patrick S. McClymont, who succeeded longtime CFO William Sheridan.Sheridan, who is leaving the company after 17 years in order to spend time with his family and focus on charitable work, agreed to stay on until the end of the year to help with the transition.

In early October, activist investor Daniel Loeb, head of the hedge-fund firm Third Point LLC, posted a copy of a letter filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and addressed to Ruprecht, calling for his resignation and seeking other sweeping changes at the auction house. Over the previous month Loeb had increased his stake in Sotheby’s from 5.7 percent to 9.3 percent, making him its biggest shareholder. There had been growing speculation that Loeb might try to leverage his holding into influence over Sotheby’s business dealings.

Days later, Sotheby’s fired back with a shareholder rights plan meant to make it more difficult for an investor to gain control of the company by diluting the value of that investor’s shares.

According to a statement from Sotheby’s, the Board adopted the rights plan “in response to the recent rapid accumulations of significant portions of Sotheby’s outstanding common stock, including through the use of derivatives.”