The Financial Times Sees “a Fragile Upward Spiral”: After two top works made small returns on short market turnarounds, the Financial Times concludes that the market is trading on previous prices.
- “In a heavily coded art market, where the value of art seems to be a high-stakes guessing game, this turn of events seems inevitable. Public prices provide some reassurance and validation for today’s growing number of new buyers and are arguably easier to understand than subjective details such as the provenance of an approved collection. For now, a small number of bankable works will continue to hit the highs — helped by the auction houses providing guarantees that bring out the much-needed supply. But it seems a fragile upward spiral. If the fundamental value of art is underpinned mostly by its previous price, what’s to stop the party coming to an end?” …
Flipping Isn’t Dead: Colin Gleadell shows from Phillips’s evening sale results that there are still plenty of opportunities to make profits from short-term sales. You just have to look for the right artists whose markets are moving. Which ones were at work at Phillips? Sean Scully, George Condo (who had a very good week all around) and Albert Oehlen. …
Art Fair Panics Aren’t Dead Either: Katya Kazakina reminds us of the frenzies from 2007 when collectors raced through the previews to buy before their rivals with the story of Thomas Yamamoto who bought a Mary Corse work for $350,000, then came to the Armory Show to see it:
- “Normally, we’d put it on reserve, come here, see it and then buy it,” said Yamamoto, 69, who began collecting art with his wife seven years ago. “We were a little afraid that if we didn’t commit to it, it would go away.”
Armory Show Sales Report: We’re gathering the reported sales from the Armory Show in one post for your easy reference. We’ll keep this open for several days. Check back often. …
Live on Jeff Koons’s Manhattan Block for $39m: Hedgie Phil Falcone is selling his 13,000 square foot townhouse on East 67th St. in Manhattan for $39m. He’s just down the block from the several townhouses that artist Jeff Koons has combined, according to the Wall Street Journal:
- “The Falcones are selling because they’re ready to move into their new home, Mr. Falcone said. The couple bought “Penthouse” magazine founder Bob Guccione’s double-width townhouse on the same street for $49 million in 2008 and have invested millions in a multi-year renovation. They expanded the property to about 30,000 square feet and added a pool and a movie theater below ground level, Mr. Falcone said.” …
New Blood in the Old Masters Market at TEFAF: Over the weekend, the Financial Times talked to a group of young Old Masters dealers who are targeting younger buyers at TEFAF this week:
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“Both [Andreas] Pampoulides and [Felippp] Benappi credit Jorge Coll, the young Spanish dealer who took over Colnaghi with his partner Nicolás Cortés in 2015, with transforming their sector. Last year, Coll sold a beautiful still life by the little-known Italian 16th-century painter Bartolomeo Cavarozzi (asking price €5m), within 30 minutes of the fair opening.”
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“I have a regular client, an American hedge fund manager, around 50 years old.” [says Pampoulides.] “I want his visits here to be a fun experience for him.[…] That way we build a relationship. Every sale comes out of a relationship.” …
Why Isn’t Mary Cassatt More Famous? The Wall Street Journal speculates that Mary Cassatt’s relative lack of fame compared to her Impressionist peers is due to the lack of a French museum show. That’s been rectified at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris where a portrait of Cassatt by Edouard Degas hangs alongside Cassatt’s own self portrait among other works. The pairing replicates the way Cassatt and Degas were known to spar in life:
- “Cassatt could be every bit as prickly and opinionated as Degas famously was. According to Cassatt biographer Frederick Sweet, the American artist Alan Philbrick, who visited her country home outside Paris, described ‘a fiery and peppery lady’ and confessed that ‘he was scared to death of her.'”
