Christie’s Couldn’t Attract Bidders to the Star Lots

Fresh to the market is a common phrase at the auction houses and private collections are usually the best source of works that get called “fresh to the market.” That held true last night at Christie’s–even with the dis-connect between estimates and economic reality–for many of the lower priced lots, especially the Surrealist lots by Magritte and De Chirico. But the big works by Manet and Rothko, which could have carried the evening as they did at Sotheby’s on Monday, didn’t attract bids.

Lindsay Pollock has this:

“There were some wonderful bargains to be had for people who have cash,” said Nash, after the sale. [ . . . ] `Prices are at the levels of two years ago,” said New York dealer David Nash. [ . . . ] Last night’s sale was an addition to the usual calendar, an auction comprised of fresh-to-the-market, but uneven estate material. “In a bull market, they would have got away with this,” said London dealer Guy Jennings, of Theobald Jennings Fine Art. “It was overly ambitious.” Jennings said that when these sales were organized in the summer, it was “a different world” and art prices were better.

The Master, Judd Tully, had these observations:

In total, 41 of the 58 lots offered found buyers for a respectable buy-in rate of 29 percent, but the majority of sold lots went for substantially reduced, and in some cases fire-sale, prices. There were plenty of bargains for those willing to make bids. “I bought exactly what I wanted,” said London dealer Libby Howie, who acquired two works on paper: Pablo Picasso’s pen-and-India-ink drawing Trois Nus (August 5, 1938) for $578,500 (est. $700,000–1,000,000) and Henri Matisse’s Le Modèle for $362,500 (est. $600–900,000). [ . . . ] Long Island dealer David Benrimon acquired three significant works, including two bargain-basement deals: Georges Braque’s Nature morte à la corbeille de fruits for $842,500 (est. $1.2–1.8 million) and Joan Miró’s Femme et oiseau devant le soleil for $2,154,500 (est. $2.5–3.5 million). “Tonight you had great opportunities,” said the dealer. “It’s between 20 and 25 percent below market value,” he added of the works he purchased. [ . . . ] Benrimon’s also acquired Rene Magritte’s gouache-on-paper L’Empire des lumières, for which he paid $3,554,500 (est. $2–3 million), a record price for a work on paper by the artist. Though this was one of the few works to exceed its estimate, the dealer speculated that six months ago, it would be have been worth $4 million. [ . . . ] Another high achiever was Alice Neel’s stunning portrait Robert Smithson, which went to a telephone bidder for $698,500 (est. $300–400,000). The work was chased by at least four bidders, including dealers Jeffrey Deitch, David Zwirner, and the ultimate underbidder, Andrew Fabricant of New York’s Richard Gray Gallery.

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Richard Prince’s Nurse Paintings Have Been a Mainstay of the Market

“That market has been ready to crack for a long time,” a senior auction house specialist said late last week while casting a glance toward one of the two Nurse paintings on offer in the Contemporary art sales.

No single body of work has better tracked the recent levitation of the art market better than the Nurse paintings. In London last month, Dude Ranch Nurse #2 (left) sold for $5.5 million, a let-down considering the rapid upward arc of prices. Had the financial markets not collapsed, the painting might have made $8 million or more . That was surely the consignor’s hope. But since the owner had bought it a mere 18 months earlier for $2.5 million, no will feel sorry for the consignor’s “loss.” Read the rest of this entry »

Dubai Sale Brings in $16.9 million Against $32 million Low Estimate

Bloomberg reports on the two-day sale of jewelry and art in Dubai:

“This is our best collection of Arab and Iranian art ever,” said Michael Jeha, Managing Director of Christie’s Middle East, in an Oct. 28 interview in Dubai. “The jewelry team lowered its estimates slightly, but for picture sales we left estimates as they are because paintings over time retain their value.” London-based Christie’s has held two sales of jewelry and art a year in Dubai since 2006. Dubai’s first auction of this year raised $40 million, the same as its total sales in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Sale Has This Kandinsky

There’s a cliche in the auction business about work that is “fresh to market” always doing well. This Kandinsky, Studie zu Improvisation 3, has been in the same family for 85 years. How’s that for fresh? The Guardian offers this review of a new book about Kandinsky:

The book’s co-editor, Annegret Hoberg, maintains that Kandinsky is the last century’s finest painter after Picasso. “The reason you can see Kandinsky in hotel rooms everywhere is because he has a universality in his painterly language, people understand it. He found new levels of sense and meaning in art via abstraction, he had inner vision.”

After the jump, we’ve condensed the catalogue entry where Christie’s experts make a case for painting’s seminal position in the transition from figurative to abstract art. That explains the $15-20 million estimate and Christie’s feeling that they’ll sell the picture in that range. (By the way, the image doesn’t do the painting justice.) Read the rest of this entry »

The New York Times Is First Out of the Gate

Carol Vogel had this column in Sunday’s Arts and Leisure section.

A $60 million painting by Kazimir Malevich. A $40 million self-portrait by Francis Bacon. It hardly seems the ideal moment to be selling such pricey art. As Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips de Pury brace for their big fall auctions in New York, starting with a sale of 71 Impressionist and Modern paintings, drawings and sculptures at Sotheby’s on Monday night, anxiety is the dominant mood. [ . . . ] Much of the art up for auction this week and next was secured early in the summer, when the world seemed a far different place. Now, with the net worth of so many buyers plummeting, auction houses have been trying to persuade sellers to lower their reserves, that is, the undisclosed minimum price that a bidder must meet for the art to be sold.

“Prices of all assets have fallen — stocks, gold, oil, real estate — and it would be unrealistic to expect works of art to be immune to the market’s pressures,” said Marc Porter, president of Christie’s in America. “We are actively encouraging consignors to set reasonable reserves.”[ . . . ]As for buyers, the message is a little trickier. With them, Mr. Porter said, Christie’s is making the argument that the objects they desire “might not reappear on the market next season at an even lower price.” [ . . . ] “Americans who fled when prices began soaring will jump back into the market but at a different price level,” said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art. Among the standouts in the fall lineup at Sotheby’s are paintings like Edvard Munch’s “Vampire” (1894), priced to bring more than $35 million, and an Yves Klein wall relief estimated at more than $25 million. Christie’s is offering a 1934 portrait of Picasso’s mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter estimated at $18 million to $25 million and a Basquiat painting at $12 million and $16 million. “I still hold the belief that the great works will find buyers,” said Guy Bennett, of Christie’s.

Tapped Out? (The New York Times)

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Christie’s Jussi Pylkkanen is Confident in Emerging Markets

Bloomberg talks to Christie’s about their Abu Dhabi exhibition and Oct. 30th Dubai sale:

Christie’s International has assembled $350 million of art in Abu Dhabi, combining highlights from its Oct. 30 auction in nearby Dubai with a Rothko, a Bacon and two Monet works as it seeks to woo emerging-market buyers. Christie’s is betting that cash from emerging markets in the Middle East, Asia and Russia will stop the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression from triggering a similar slump in the art market. [ . . . ] Christie’s auction of international modern and contemporary art in Dubai Oct. 30, its fifth in the emirate, will be its first sale in the Middle East since the worst of the financial crisis hit. The last Dubai auction set a record for a Middle Eastern artist when “The Wall (Oh Persepolis),” a nearly 2-meter tall bronze sculpture covered in hieroglyphics by Iranian Parviz Tanavoli, fetched $2.84 million. “I’m very confident that the sale in Dubai, particularly the picture sale, will be very robust,” said Pylkkanen. Christie’s last auction of Islamic and Indian art in London in Oct. 7 ended with 47 percent of lots sold. The auction brought in 77 percent by value, according to Christie’s.

Pylkkanen says he would be “very disappointed” if November’s New York auctions achieved the 40-50 percent that some of the recent London sales earned. “When I started to work in the Impressionist department in 1991, the very first sale I was involved with sold only 17 percent,” he said. “It was a traumatic adjustment. This is a much more measured adjustment.”

Emerging Nations to Save Art Market From Slump, Christie’s Says (Bloomberg)

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