At the end of a long and exhausting sale cycle filled with dramatic tension about meeting market expectations, it was not surprising that Christie’s measured but successful Impressionist and Modern evening sale seemed to reassure everyone that an older version of the art market still remains hidden below the tempestuous surface.
Here are Scott Reyburn and Robin Pogrebin on the important role Impressionist and Modern works played in Monday’s sale at Christie’s and the effects of the change on market impressions:
Some 19 of 34 works in that sale fell into the Imps & Mods classification, selling for $342 million in an auction that brought $491.4 million including commissions. […]
But the strategy creates challenges. “If the very best lots are siphoned off, it may leave the regular sale lacking in star lots,” said Guy Jennings, managing director of the Fine Art Fund Group in London, “and star lots always help to lift the mood in the room.”
Without those inflection points in the sale, the orderly bidding seemed numbing, especially at the end of two long weeks, as they learned from Helly Nahmad:
“A two-hour sale at the end of two weeks of auctions is too much,” Mr. Nahmad said. “They could have just 18 lots in the themed sale and keep a couple back for this.” […]
“The room was quiet,” the dealer Helly Nahmad said. “But when you look at the prices, they were pretty strong.”
Others felt the sale’s strength was an indication of an older way of doing business, as Dan Duray found out:
The dealer Hugh Gibson of Thomas Gibson Fine Art bid on both those works and won a later lot, Max Pechstein’s Drei badende Frauen am Meer (1912) for $1.1m (hammer $900,000/est. $1.2m-$1.8m). “Christie’s put on a very strong sale,” Gibson said. “That’s what happens when you put together good works and put them at good estimates. Despite the fact that half the room was empty, I think when they add up the totals they’re going to be very happy.”
As usual for this category, Picasso played an important role in the sale, as Judd Tully points out:
There were 11 Picasso works in the sale, of which nine sold, including the rather gloomy “Tête de Femme” from March 1940, shortly before the Nazis’ occupation of Paris. The composition, in oil on paper laid down on canvas, sold to dealer Ethan Cohen of Ethan Cohen New York for $3,749,000 (est. $3-4 million). “Baigneuses au bollon,” a page-sized oil signed and dated 20 August 1928 by Picasso, also went to Cohen, for an estimate-busting $3,525,000 (est. $1-1.5 million). Cohen beat out at least three other bidders on the petite work.
“I wanted to go after the most beautiful pieces for my clients,” Cohen said after he left the rather sparsely attended salesroom, “so I was very pleased.”
Katya Kazakina spoke to the winner of the evening’s top lot which also happened to be a Picasso:
The top lot at Christie’s Thursday auction was Pablo Picasso’s Cubist still life “La Carafe (Bouteille et verre)” that fetched $10.5 million, surpassing the high estimate of $9 million. The prices include buyer’s commission charged by the auction house; the estimates don’t.
“We were prepared to go much higher for that picture,” said art adviser Abigail Asher, a partner at art advisory firm Guggenheim Asher Associates Inc. in New York, who won the work on behalf of a client. “It’s so rare to find an analytical early Cubist picture that you have to stretch. What can you get in contemporary art for that same price?”
Artnews discovered that many felt they couldn’t get a Picasso at decent price:
“I thought the sale was very, very healthy—the market was very healthy tonight,” said dealer Helly Nahmad who, with his brother Joe and father David, was among the more ubiquitous dealers and collectors at the sales this year. Tonight, they snapped up Léger’s Nature morte au buste (1924) for $1.2 million. “We tried to bid on a few Picassos, but we were unsuccessful,” he added.
Many observers remarked upon the slow pace of the sale. Almost all picked out the moment when a dealer in the room lost his patience with Christie’s attempt to accommodate a slow telephone bidder. But Judd Tully told anecdote best:
Later in the interminably long and slow-paced sale, Henry Moore’s massive “Two Piece Reclining Figure: Points,” in bronze and cast before 1973, sold to an impatient bidder, London dealer Alan Hobart, for $7,7669,000 (est. $7-10 million).
Seated in the front row, Hobart waved his paddle, indicating he wanted the auctioneer to knock the piece down, but a slower bidding telephone kept the competition going in $100,000 increments.
Seemingly fed up, Hobart told the auctioneer loudly that “the money’s on the table,” a line that seemed to do the trick.
“You try to buy those big ones and you can’t get them anymore,” Hobart said later, referring to the Moore, which was stationed on the sidewalk directly outside the front doors of Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters. “I’m delighted to get it and now I have to worry about shipping it,” presumably overseas.
Finally, and perhaps of signal importance, the Impressionist and Modern market has been getting a strong boost from Asian buyers:
Rene Magritte’s 1938-39 painting, “Le miroir universel,” depicting a statuesque nude, who appears to be at once inside a brightly lit room and out in the cerulean, nocturnal seascape, fetched $6.7 million, above its $3 million to $5 million estimate. The buyer was a telephone client of Rebecca Wei, president of Christie’s Asia, excluding China. Later in the sale, she also bought a bronze female bust by Alberto Giacometti for $2.3 million.
“We’ve done a huge amount of work in Asia,” said Jussi Pylkkanen, Christie’s global president, after the sale. “We’ve genuinely cultivated the younger generation of collectors there. It’s the Asians who’ve underpinned the market this week.”
New York Art Marathon Nets $2.3 Billion, Underpinned by Asia (Bloomberg Business)
Impressionist and Modern Works Bring Solid Bids at Christie’s Auction (The New York Times)
Strong finish for New York auction marathon at Christie’s (The Art Newspaper)
New York Art Marathon Nets $2.3 Billion, Underpinned by Asia (Bloomberg Business)
Christie’s Nets Healthy $145.5 M. at Imp-Mod Auction, Led by Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne (ARTnews)
