Carol Vogel’s round up of top auction lots that will run in Sunday’s New York Times marvels at the parade of big-ticket works. She points to a items like the Warhol Silver Car Crash at Sotheby’s that has been in the same collection for 25 years or Peter Brant’s Orange Balloon Dog.
“There are still masterworks in the hands of collectors who have had them from the beginning, and they realize that there are collectors out there who only want the best,” said Brett Gorvy, chairman of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art department.
That may be true and if you look at the provenance of many of the works in the Contemporary sales you’ll see a number of John Chamberlain sculptures, Cy Twombly scribbles and Agnes Martin works that have been with their consignors for decades.
But Sotheby’s and Christie’s Evening sales also include 31% and 35% (respectively) of the lots which were bought or created since 2001.
Nearly a dozen works were bought since 2010 and there are a number being flipped after only a year of ownership, including David Ganek’s Christopher Wool painting that was once owned by Francois Pinault and is now on offer for $15-20m. Ganek is not the only troubled hedgie flipping works. Steven Cohen has two of Ileana Sonnabend’s Warhols that were bought by Gagosian in 2008 and sold on to collectors since.
The three Maurizio Cattelan works on offer were bought in 2008, 2010 and 2011. And the Christopher Wool painting above was bought at Phillips in November of 2010 for $600,000 but has since changed hands again. It comes into the Sotheby’s Evening sale sporting an estimate $1.5-2.5m.
Digging into Deep Pockets at Auction (NYTimes)
