Who Owns the Art at Menzies?

Doubts Don’t Help Prices

This Bonnard and Warhol’s Picasso made prices toward the low end of their estimates (with the premium added) at Menzies. The Bonnard went for A$1.1 million and the Warhol A$1.5 million. Menzies’s spokesman used the questionable excuse of turmoil in the financial markets. Forget the slowdown in August’s sales in Australia.

Presale worries about the ownership of the two works suggested a guarantee would drive prices upward (how that works was not explained in the article.)

As Menzies Art Brands Prepares to Auction a Warhol;

A New South Wales Museum Buys a Cezanne

The first phase of Australian art auctions held in late August suggested a softening market at least for works of Australian art. Now Menzies Art Brands will shoot for A$12-16 million in a September sale taking place Thursday and Friday that features a Warhol portrait of Picasso, a Bonnard and major work from an indigenous artist. Menzies Tim Abdallah describes the importance of the Bonnard:

“Pierre Bonnard has been highly influential to artists all over the world including a number of prominent Australian artists including William Robinson and Margaret Olley,” Mr Abdallah said.

In other signs that the Aussie art market is far from dormant, The Art Gallery of New South Wales just bought a A$16.2 million Cezanne landscape. The picture is one of only three Cezannes in the country.

Australian Alan Cleary Never Bought a Work for more than $10,000 but he has amassed a collection of more than 200 works. His secret was to focus on small works:

Over a 30-year period Cleary has picked up more than 200 original works by a range of artists including Giles Auty, Adam Cullen, Lucy Culliton, Brian Dunlop, James Gleeson, Chris O’Doherty, Ricky Swallow and Roland Wakelin. Most of these are in the emerging artists category - a few, such as Gleeson, are getting close to blue chip status. All their work is predicted to increase in value, if it hasn’t already. Most of these artists are starting to appear regularly on the secondary (auction) market and their work is fetching healthy amounts.

In Cleary’s case, it helped that after an early interest in traditional landscapes he became a fan of contemporary art and was able to buy original work by unknown artists at their first shows. Some have achieved fame, some have not.

Yet by using his small-is-better formula he was also able to buy paintings by established artists such as Wendy Sharpe, the winner of the Archibald Prize in 1996. He snapped up two small original oils in 1997, the year after her victory when the value of her work was near its peak. As they were small, he paid just $750 each for them. He has had them valued recently about $2500 each.

The God of Small Things (Sydney Morning Herald)

Two Lackluster Sales and They’re Already Talking About Survival

Australia is home to no less than 8 fine art auction houses. That’s a pretty crowded market for a nation of 20 million. Last week there were two sales with weak results prompting The Australian to wonder who might survive a shakeout: Read the rest of this entry »

Australia’s Art Market Records Another 49% Sale by Lot and Nearly A$5 million

The Age reports that Bonhams and Goodman had a record for John Russell at A$1.56 million and strong interest in the quality goods. Meanwhile, Bloomberg follows up on the Sotheby’s sale to include the day sale results: Read the rest of this entry »

Sotheby’s Melbourne sale brings in A$5.77 million against a pre-sale estimate of A$9 to A$12 million with 49% of the lots sold. The Australian says its the economy:

Georgina Pemberton, Sotheby’s head of paintings, described last night’s result as “a reflection of our economic climate and we are now going through a correction in the art market”.

But the sale was significant for the A$1.89 million Russell Drysdale portrait (left) that was the star lot of the sale according to  ABC News. There were also good prices for works in the A$50,000 range. Though the Grace Cossington Smith work that a Dallas couple bought for $25 and was estimated in the $35,000 range failed to find a buyer.

Enthusiastic Australians Flock to the Art Market

The 11th Annual Melbourne Art fair demonstrates that Russian and Gulf States collectors are not the only ones riding the commodities boom toward art.

Bloomberg has this report on the Australian art market which is driven primarily by interest in Australian art: Read the rest of this entry »

How Does This Man Control the Australian Art Market?

Rod Menzies is under fire in Australia for his business practices. As the owner of two of the countries largest auction houses, with a 60% market share and turnover of A$60 million versus Sotheby’s A$51.4 million, the charges are no laughing matter. Though the complaints will be familiar to anyone who has followed the auction business where present and former owners like Bernard Arnault, Alfred Taubman and Francois Pinault are also often frequent buyers and sellers of art. Here’s how the The Age puts it: Read the rest of this entry »