The art market: ‘When you have the right property … you get fireworks’
The autumn sales of Impressionist and modern art held in New York this week demonstrated that big money is still available on the right works of art but that the market will mercilessly reject the run-of-the-mill.
The two evening sales were an exercise in contrasts. Christie’s offered a lacklustre selection of works of art on Tuesday and failed to find buyers for almost a quarter of the 41 lots, and its total fell short of expectations, raising just $65.7m, well below the pre-sale estimate of $68.7m-$97.2m (pre-sale estimates do not include premium; results do). Among the few highlights was Degas’ pretty pastel “Danseuses” (1896), which went to an unidentified Asian buyer for $10.7m, above estimate.
The following evening, Sotheby’s sale was a far punchier affair which flew well above the high pre-sale estimate of $160m to make $181.8m, with almost 85 per cent of the 60 lots finding buyers. New records were set for André Derain and Van Dongen and 64 per cent of the sold lots went over their high estimates. The top lot, Giacometti’s teetering “L’Homme qui Chavire” (1950-51), made $19.3m (estimate $8m-$12m), while the cover lot, Van Dongen’s knowing, red-bodied “Jeune Arabe” (1910), made $13.8m (estimate $7m-$10m). “When you have the right property…you get fireworks,” said Sotheby’s specialist Emmanuel Di-Donna after the sale.
Contemporary art takes its turn in New York this week, with sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury. Assembling these sales has proved difficult, with vendors holding off in the hope that prices might rise next year. As a result, there are few standout works: only two, Basquiat’s “Brother Sausage” (1983) at Christie’s and Andy Warhol’s grey repetitive “200 One Dollar Bills” (1962) carry expectations of over $10m.
Christie’s kicks off on Tuesday with a 46-lot evening sale estimated at $67m-$94m. Its star is Peter Doig’s “Reflection” (1996), showing a man’s silhouette and rust-coloured tree trunks mirrored in a green pond and estimated at $4m-$6m. Doig has ridden out the recession well: at auction in May this year, his “Night Fishing” (1993) sold for its high estimate, at $4.1m.
Sotheby’s sale on Wednesday fields 55 lots in a $69m-$99m sale which features another Warhol, his 1965 “Self Portrait”, given to a receptionist – and inscribed on the back, “to Cathy, (two years late)” – and now carrying expectations of $1m-$1.5m. The sale includes a group of 21 works from the estate of the Ohio collectors Mary and Louis Myers, including Alice Neel’s portrait of the gay couple “Jackie Curtis and Rita Red” (1970), ($400,000-$500,000).
Auction houses may be struggling to find vendors, but one source is fertile: bankrupt corporate collections. These sales have two handicaps, however – they have a “fire sale” taint, although this is generally offset by very low estimates. And because corporate collections have to be politically correct, avoiding nudity, controversy, fattism, ageism and so on, the art can be unduly safe, if not downright boring.
None of this hampered the first sale of art from the 650-strong collection belonging to Lehman Brothers on Monday in Philadelphia, which was an outright success. Local auctioneer Freemans knocked down 283 lots (they all sold) for $1.35m, twice pre-sale expectations. The top price was for a Lichtenstein print, “I Love Liberty” (1982), which sold for $49,000. More Lehman art comes under the hammer in December and February next year. Meanwhile, Bonhams and Butterfields sells art from the bankrupt Californian law firm Heller Ehrman this Tuesday in New York, with more to come in San Francisco in February next year. And on December 8 the Italian auction house Finarte is selling about 200 lots of modern Italian art from the Italian carrier Alitalia SpA. The highlight is a vast canvas, “Zeus gave birth to the sun”, by the Futurist Gino Severini, commissioned for Alitalia’s Paris office in 1954 and now estimated at €300,000- €500,000. Other works are in the low thousands, among them Osvaldo Peruzzi’s “Flight above the clouds” (1997) estimated at €2,000-€3,000.
In a last-minute rescue, the French State has paid €1.4m for the Trésor de la Meuse, a stunning cache of French Renaissance silver which was due to be sold at Sotheby’s Paris next Monday.
The 15th- and 16th-century parcel-gilt silver treasure – a ewer, spoons, cups, beakers and two salts – was dug up in 2006 in the Lorraine countryside. The finder took them to his local museum and negotiations for sale started with the French state. But when the talks dragged on, the finder decided to sell at auction, with an “on request” estimate of about €1m. As France promptly classified the cache as a “National Treasure”, it would not be allowed to leave the country.
But behind all of this, other talks were going on. French auction houses are not allowed to carry out private treaty sales, so a Sotheby’s company outside the country was negotiating a sale. In the end the French state, local bodies and sponsors came up with the money, and have bought the treasure for the Lorrain Museum in Nancy. Sotheby’s compensation? Under the private treaty arrangement, it just gets the vendors’ premium, but no buyers’ premium. But the firm’s specialist, Thierry de Lachaise, says he is privileged to have handled the treasure: “It is breathtakingly beautiful, and extremely rare,” he said. “The ewer is the oldest known with a Paris hallmark, and the set of 12 spoons are 150 years earlier than any other known sets.”
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