Interview with Guy Bennett

In our continuing effort to de-mystify the art market and make the auction houses more accessible, we bring you this interview with Christie’s Guy Bennett (along with some video excerpts.)

First, a little background. Guy Bennett is Senior Vice President, International Co-Head of Impressionist and Modern Art. In addition to overseeing the day to day running of the department worldwide, he is responsible for the daily management, marketing and promotion of Christie’s sales of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York. And, of course, it’s his job to find the right properties to sell at the right time. He headed the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale in November 2006 which totaled $491.5 million, making it the most valuable auction ever. The next year, he organized the second most valuable sale totaling $396 million in November 2007.

In 2008, Bennett landed the Miller Collection, which included Monet’s spectacular “Le bassin aux nymphéas” which sold for $80.4 million in London in June, doubling the artist’s previous record set a month earlier when Bennett had orchestrated the sale of Monet’s “Le Pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil” in New York which sold for $41.5 million. (The interview, with video, after the jump.) Read the rest of this entry »

The Press is Taking Stock of the Contemporary Sales

Sotheby’s

From the report of the Master, Judd Tully:

“I think the market is continuing its onward march, blissfully ignorant of all the turmoil in the financial markets,” said New York private dealer Christopher Eykyn. “It certainly hasn’t been a bad investment so far.” Read the rest of this entry »

Disappointing 20thC Design Sales Bring in Just Shy of $18 million

All three auction houses held their 20th Century Design sales through the weekend. The results weren’t thrilling but they did validate Murray Moss’s prediction: “Prices continue to rise dramatically for great work, and to fall for what is deemed mediocre,” he said. “In short, the market is becoming more extreme - like the society that supports it.” His comments come from Alice Rawsthorn’s overview of the ‘design-art’ market published two weeks ago in the International Herald Tribune and a touch more recently in the NY Times. (Detailed results after the jump.) Read the rest of this entry »

Sotheby’s Latin American Evening Sale does $21 million–well above the high estimate.

Tonight’s evening sale of Latin American Art achieved a total of $21,033,500 (est. $13,945,000/17,945,000), the highest total ever for an evening sale of Latin American Art at Sotheby’s. Read the rest of this entry »

Christie’s Latin American sale shows vitality in the market

From Christie’s press release:

Christie’s landmark Latin American Evening Sale realized both a new world auction record for Latin American Art with Rufino Tamayo’s Trovador at $7,209,000, and set the highest total ever for any auction of Latin American Art at $26,632,850. Tamayo’s magnificent Trovador more than doubled the previous world auction record for the artist, and eclipsed the previous record for the category, held by Frida Kahlo’s Roots, which sold for $5,616,000 in May 2006. The sale was 86% sold by value, 83% sold by lot.

Read the rest of this entry »

Elizabeth Peyton’s prices have been up and down but a strong show and a strong showing at auction suggest her market is back on form.

New York Magazine liked Elizabeth Peyton’s recent show at Gavin Brown. The market liked all three works that came up. Each house had one.

Christie’s had the most expensive with Kurt Cobain, estimated at between $700k and $1 million, which sold for $769,000.

Phillips de Pury had the one that sold the best: John Squires, estimated at between $200k and $300k, went for $421k–well above the high estimate.

And Sotheby’s had a little of both with Jarvis (Dancing), estimated at between $400k and $600k but selling for $741,000.

Edward Hicks’s Peacable Kingdom leads Sotheby’s big sale

With 214 lots offered and 176 sold, Sotheby’s American Paintings sale totaled $86,006,200. That’s 82% of the lots sold. Among them were not only this Edward Hicks painting but 13 other record-setting works and 17 paintings that sold for more than $1 million. Carrying a high estimate of $77 million, the sale nailed the high estimate without the buyer’s premium.

Here are the top ten lots from the sale:

EDWARD HICKS, The Peaceable Kingdom . . . . ($6,000,000 - 8,000,000) $9,673,000

WILLIAM MERRITT CHASE, I Think I Am Ready Now ($1,500,000 - 2,500,000) $6,649,000

FREDERIC REMINGTON, The Wounded Bunkie ($3,000,000 - 5,000,000) $5,641,000

CHILDE HASSAM, Paris, Winter Day ($2,500,000 - 3,500,000) $3,961,000

FREDERIC REMINGTON, The Outlaw ($2,000,000 - 3,000,000) $3,401,000

MAXFIELD PARRISH, The Canyon ($2,500,000 - 3,500,000) $2,841,000

STUART DAVIS, The Music Hall ($500,000 - 700,000) $2,841,000

CHILDE HASSAM, Flower Garden, Isles of Shoals ($1,000,000 - 1,500,000) $2,505,000

WILLIAM SIDNEY MOUNT, The Ramblers ($2,000,000 - 3,000,000) $2,281,000

CHARLES C. COLEMAN, Azaleas and Apple Blossoms ($500,000 - 700,000) $2,281,000

With record prices in Western paintings, American Impressionism and Modernism, there’s new life–and a lot of money–in American paintings.

Christie’s had a blow out sale of American paintings yesterday with $72.5 million being paid for 111 lots out of 140. That’s 79% sold by lot and a record total for the sale. This Thomas Moran painting, “Green River Wyoming,” had a high estimate of $5,000,000. Ha! That would have been a bargain. It sold for $17 million, a record for a 19th Century American painting.

Here’s the rest of the top ten:

1. Thomas Moran, Green River of Wyoming, 1878 (3,500,000-5,000,000)$17,737,000
2. Albert Bierstadt, Indians Spear Fishing, 1862 (2,500,000- 3,500,000) $7,321,000
3. Marsden Hartley, Lighthouse , 1915 (5,000,000-7,000,000) $6,313,000
4. Childe Hassam, Spring in Central Park, 1908 (2,500,000- 3,500,000) $5,641,000
5. Thomas Moran, A Passing Shower in the Yellowstone Cañon, 1903 (1,500,000- 2,500,000) $2,505,000
6. George Inness, Sunset on the River, 1867 (600,000-800,000) $1,945,000
7. Walter Ufer, The Gateway, 1918 (500,000-700,000) $1,497,000
8. Joseph Henry Sharp, The Medicine Teepee, 1903 (500,000-700,000) $1,497,000
9. Walter Ufer, Making Ready, 1917 (600,000-800,000) $1,385,000
10. Edward Henry Potthast, At the Beach (300,000-500,000) $1,161,000

The Contemporary Day Sale round-up from Artnet brings news that Beatriz Milhazes has broken the $1 million mark.

Artnet offers its results from Christie’s and Sotheby’s day sales with a little extra analysis of Sotheby’s stock price. What’s the world coming to when someone spends nearly $4 million in a day sale?

Robert Rauschenberg’s death last week brought out a range of obituaries, memories and a few vituperations.

The New York Times gives us a broad overview of the artist’s life and significance; as far as the art goes, Michael Kimmelman suggests it was “something fugitive, exquisite and secret.”

The Washington Post had more conflicting feelings. Blake Gopnik used to love Rauschenberg but now worries that the combines “don’t look as great as they once did.” Now, the works seem “a touch inchoate and bombastic–like overblown, Americanized versions of European assemblages that tighter focus and a less portentous tone.”

Roger Kimball, to no one’s shock, lets loose calling the artist, “the golden dustman.” Though he doesn’t mean it to be, it works better as a compliment.

Jed Perl, in the New Republic, blames Rauschenberg for Damian Hirst, Jeff Koons and Mike Kelley: “so far as his work is concerned, it has from beginning to end been nothing but bad news.”

In Slate, Jake Shafer shares some personal memories and complains that the obits are too nice.

Also in Slate, the story most worth reading on Rauschenberg is Jim Lewis’s essay. Describing the artist as having lived “the perfect life,” Lewis quotes Rauschenberg as fretting that death would mean “something interesting is going to happen and I’m going to miss it.” But in the process, Lewis makes the best case for the meaning of Rauschenberg’s work and life. He points out that Rauschenberg made surprisingly few important works for a great artist — “the drops from the sprinkler landed where they would.”

And that about sums it up. However you value Rauschenberg’s many works, his life and artistic legacy will remain invaluable.