Art Market Monitor

An art advisor summed up the mood of the Frieze sales in London last week in a comment on Instagram. Observing the top lots at Sotheby’s Evening sale, the advisor wrote, “So it’s either a major Cy Twombly, OR … a Flora Yukhnovich … hmmm.”

The advisor had purchased the Twombly work on paper for £2.8 million at slightly below the low estimate (the client was surely happy about that.) The chagrinned comment was because the Yukhnovich had made £2.2 million—which was more than 30 times the low estimate on a hammer-price basis. 

Cy Twombly had his first show 70 years ago at the Samuel Kootz gallery. Flora Yukhnovich had her MA show four years ago. The painting that was sold for £2.2 million was just shown on her Instagram page 18 months ago. Even though the two works are hardly comparable (relative to each artists’ body of work,) you can see how the Yuknovich sale is emblematic of a market driven by collectors chasing new talents.

Flora Yukhnovich was hardly the only painter to see her work soar above most estimates. The list of artists with the most intense bidding on their work is dominated by painters whose work has only been on the market for a few years; in some cases, these artists were seeing their work sold at auction for the first time.

Among the artists who received the most aggressive bidding during the Frieze auctions were Yukhnovich—who had the top two most in-demand works in the sales—Emily Mae Smith, Ewe Juszkkiewicz, Jadé Fadojutimi, Reggie Burrows Hodges, Isshaq Ismail, Cinga Samson, Serge Attukwei Clottey, Shara Hughes, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones and Hurvin Anderson. (Anderson is one of the few artists with a significant market history who also saw large price-level leaps.)

Bidders may have been elbowing past gallery waiting lists. But the value of the these sales remained concentrated in artists like Gerhard Richter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hockney, Lucio Fontana and Alexander Calder. Works by Banksy, Hurvin Anderson and Cecily Brown represent a generation of younger, living artists whose work is consistently valued in the millions and were among the top ten lots in these sales.

This dichotomy between vibrant competition at a lower price level, the Yukhnovich not withstanding, and a rather orderly but uninspired market at the top suggests we’re reaching the peak of a market swing toward emerging artists. 

Some of the market’s internal numbers indicate we may have not reached that extreme yet. 

Let’s compare the Frieze sales from 2019—the last edition of these sales before the global pandemic—with last week’s numbers. In 2019, £231 million in art was sold during the Frieze auctions. Of the 735 lots offered, 83% found buyers for a sell-through rate of 83%. The hammer ratio for the sales was a moderately robust 1.1; and the top ten lots accounted for 28% of the overall sales total. 

Last week, the overall total was 22% lower. But the number of lots offered was 44% lower. The sell-through rate was 6% higher. The hammer ratio was an even stronger 1.2; 50% of the sold lots went for prices above the high estimate. In 2019, only 38% of the sold lots went for prices above the high estimate. Finally, this year the top ten lots accounted for 40% of the overall sale value. 

These numbers suggest that supply is down and demand is up in the art market. Bidders are chasing lower value works; but those works don’t add up to enough to offset the accumulated value of long-standing names. In other words, Richter, Basquiat, Banksy and others like Twombly still outweigh the value of all of those new names. 

Comparing the two seasons, the number that stands out the most is the average price level. In 2019, the average price of a lot at a Frieze auction was £380,144—a significant amount of money in any context. Two years and a great deal of social and economic dislocation later, the average price at 2021’s Frieze auctions was £497,241. That’s almost a 31% rise in average price. 

The other dramatic change in these sales from 2019 to 2021 is the market share. These sales have brought a number of new names onto the market share chart, including more women and persons of color. Two thirds of the artists on the list are still men of European descent. But a full third of the list are not. 

Richter, Banksy and Basquiat were all among the top four names by market share in 2019. Though Richter and Banksy together accounted for as much as the four names (Fontana had 5.2% of the market share) did in 2019. New names on the market share chart this year are Yukhnovich, Jadé Fadojutimi, Emily Mae Smith, Shara Hughes and Paula Rego. Together they took more than 5% of the money spent in the sale. 

Sotheby’s Hong Kong sales cycle was down substantially from the Spring with the Contemporary art category falling from $141 million in sales to just under $100 million. Looking at the sales results, it would appear the problem was more one of limited supply more than cooling demand.

The top Contemporary art lot, Jean-Michel Basquiat‘s Untitled (Red Warrior), sold after bidding confined to a narrow range just below the low estimate. The guaranteed work seemed to have but two bidders. Only one of them seemed to be bidding with any determination. The $20.9 million result brought the momentum of high-value Basquiat sales in Hong Kong to an abrupt halt.

This Spring there were three Basquiat sales above $30 million in Hong Kong. Aby Rosen’s Warrior had kicked the sales off in March when it made $41.6m. That was followed by the May sale of another 1982 figure for $30.2 million and June sale of a 1985 work featured in a famous portrait of the artist that made $37 million.

The red warrior went to an American buyer. Although auctions at this level are truly global at this point, the sale does reverse some of the market narrative around Asian buyers’ interest.

Overall, the top lots in the evening sale were a mix of Asian and Western artists with only Cecily Brown and Kazuo Shiraga‘s works showing any sign of aggressive bidding. In the chart below, we can see that all but two of the top 10 lots in the Evening sale were sold within the estimate range.

That observation shouldn’t suggest Asian buyers are dormant. The aggressive bidding in Hong Kong was very much on display in the day sale. This list of the top 25 day sale lots is color coded by bidding. The green lots achieved prices above the estimate range. A full 60% of the top 25 lots were sold for prices above the estimate range.

The list includes a range of artists. Bidders were excited by works from Yayoi Kusama (four works in the top 25; three bid above estimates), Yoshitomo Nara (two works in the top 25; one bid above estimates), Lee Ufan, Jonas Wood, Zhang Xiaogang and Shara Hughes who also had a record price set in the Evening sale.

Ding Yi‘s market seems to be having a comeback after a decade of slow sales. There was strong bidding on his Appearance of Crosses, 2002-12. Izumi Kato‘s untitled work confirmed the new level of demand first seen in Hong Kong this May. This is the second sale of the artist’s work in the mid-six-figure range which is roughly twice the previous level of top sales.

Several other artists saw breakout sales on the most dynamic lot list.

During Sotheby’s Hong Kong Contemporary art sales this past weekend, all of the action was in the day sale lots. The sale made $22.5m, an all-time high for a Hong Kong Contemporary art day sale; and, all but one of the top ten most dynamic lots—those bid highest above their pre-sale estimates—were works offered in the Contemporary art day sale. 

What does this tell us? Collectors are looking for the next big thing. 

The biggest of the next big things is clearly Javier Calleja. Three of the Spanish artist’s works were in the top ten lots. Each of the three made a hammer ratio (he hammer price divided by the low estimate) of between 6 and 8 times the low estimate. The price points varied with two works just about in the $250-300k range and one coming at more than double with a $755k premium price. 

The most aggressively bid upon work was Mr. Doodle’s Tokyo Doodle which sold for $650,000 outperforming the artist’s other work that sold well in the Evening sale the day before. Together, works made only two years ago sold for $1.1m over the weekend. 

Zhang Yingnan’s first public sale outside of Mainland China was a huge success with Song of the Sunset selling for ten times the low estimate for a work made the previous year. 

Atushi Kaga’s “I think it was a nightmare” is a a 2020 painting made by a Japanese artist acquired in an Irish gallery and sold in Hong Kong.  The final price represents a four fold increase from the two previous public sales of the artist’s work. 

From an exhibition held two years ago at New York’s Allouche gallery, Rafa Macarrón’s first appearance in an Evening sale for his second work ever sold at auction was a rousing success when it made $550k, the third highest value lot on this list.

 

Tomokazu Matsuyama’s market has accelerated this year with a very strong sale at Christie’s in Hong Kong in May for an earlier work from 2011. This tondo from a series that was selling 6 years ago for $20k has now achieved what might be seen as a confirmation price. The $260k paid for the work was significantly below the record set in May but well above previous prices suggesting some depth in the market at these new levels. 

Susumu Kamijo’s paintings of his dogs have been steadily gaining value over the past year on the auction market. The $90k paid for Rapport Building is right in line with prices paid in May and June in New York.  

Edgar Plans painting Love in a Forest comes to market a few weeks after Phillips achieved a record price of $195k in Hong Kong. Plans market has been very active in 2021 with the previous high water mark set in July at Christie’s in New York. This $80k confirmation price suggests more buyers are waiting in the wings. 

Swann celebrated the end of its 14th year holding African American art auctions—a category the small New York house pioneered—by hitting the highest ever auction total. On October 7th, Swann sold $5,106,585 worth of art across 201 lots. That reflects an 86% sell-through rate.

The top lot of the sales was an oil painting by Hale Woodruff, the most valuable of his abstract works to be sold, that made $665,000. It was followed by an Elizabeth Catlett head that made a new record for the artist at $485,000. The previous record was set just two years ago at Swann too.

These would be strong results in any context. But Swann’s strength in the category continues despite the broad growth of sales of African American artists at larger auction houses. A quick look at a chart of Swann’s results in the category shows how far these sales have come.

The chart clearly shows that the last four years have represented an entirely different level of market activity. In early 2020, Swann had an additional sale of work owned by the Johnson Publishing company. That sale offset some of the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic.

The growth hasn’t only come because of the rising value of African American art, especially the growth in interest and bidding for young figurative painters of the African diaspora. Indeed, Swann’s sales are more focused on historical artists. Although artists like Norman Lewis, Sam Gilliam and Simone Leigh have begun to appear at mainstream auction houses, the value in Swann’s sales tend to be located in work by artists who still do not get featured in other auction house’s sales.

The chart above tracks the results of each sale against the average prices in each sale. Those average prices are more volatile than the overall results. The Johnson Publishing collection had very high average prices for the 87 works sold. That’s not uncommon for single-owner sales. The dip in average prices later during the pandemic year of 2020 and their steady recovery along with sale totals during 2021 suggest the market has been able to retain price levels since 2018.

 

For many the name Georg Baselitz immediately brings to mind a painter of inverted portraits. That pictorial strategy was born out of the artist’s desire not to be trapped in a recognizable style; but it also became a defining, perhaps distracting, feature of his art. Baselitz’s role as a key figure reviving German Expressionism and connecting Contemporary painting in Europe to American counterparts like Willem de Kooning and Jean-Michel Basquiat should come back into the foreground when the Centre Pompidou, later this month, opens its six-decade retrospective of the artist’s work, the first in more than a decade.

Curated by the outgoing director, Bernard Blistène, the show Baselitz: The Retrospective opens October 20th and includes significant works like The Big Night Down the Drain (1962-63) and Ralf III (1965), The Girls of Olmo II (1981) and Read in the Cup the Cheerful Yellow (2010).

Here are some of the highlights of Baselitz’s protean career illustrated in the show:

In 1961, East German-born Baselitz emerges in West Germany steeped in earlier non-conforming artists like Edvard Munch and literary figures like Antonin Artaud and Lautréamont. His “Pandaemonium Manifesto” draws from the bleak post-war frustration of German reconciliation. “I had to question everything,” he tells Artforum in 2015. “I had to become ‘naive’ again, to start over.” Baselitz’s work expresses rage at his country’s past but his work provokes its own outrage.

Baselitz’s first 1963 exhibition results in two works—Die große Nacht im Eimer [The Big Night Down the Drain] (1962-1963) and Der nackte Mann [The Naked Man] (1962)— are seized by authorities. A trial for indecency follows.

Baselitz paints a series of self portraits as Oberon (63-64) drawing from Munch’s ‘scream’ images.

Baselitz retreats to a residency in Florence, Italy where he is impressed by Mannerist paintings from the 15th century. He emerges working on a new series of Helden [Hero] paintings depicting poets, partisans and painters walking through devastated forests and landscapes. These works culminate in the Die großen Freunde [The Great Friends] (1965).

Frakturbilder follow next with the introduction of symbolic figures including more heroic figures, dogs and trees. In these works Baselitz is making allusions to imagery that depicts a “transcendent German soul” as well as breaking with some of the conventions of figurative painting. These works begin to foreshadow the inversions that will become so important later in his work.

In 1969, the 30-year-old Baselitz resists both narrative painting and the theoretical freight of abstraction. His solution comes in inverting the image which allows him “the freedom to confront pictorial problems.” The inversions unlock a market for his work. But they also give him the freedom to reinvent his style of painting and subject matter.

Baselitz flirts with abstraction in the mid-1970s with a series of nude paintings that are self portraits or double portraits with his wife.

The artist begins collecting African sculpture in the mid-1970s. Melding the inspiration of these works with German wood sculptures of the medieval period, Baselitz presents Model for a Sculpture in the German pavilion at the 1980 Venice Biennale. The work provokes an uproar of conflicting interpretations but the furor raises the artist’s international stature.

Vivid colors appear in his work with the Girls of Olmo and his work harks back to the expressionism of Germany at the turn of the century. As the 1980s progress, Baselitz paints works inspired by the Austrian Expressionist poet Georg Trakl which are displayed near the Berlin Wall. Later still in the decade when the wall comes down, Baselitz pays tribute through a series of sculptures to the Women of Dresden who cleared the rubble of city after it was bombed in 1945.

In the 1990s, Baselitz experiments with Bildübereins [Picture-Over-Another] series where images are layered over abstractions and ornamentations.

Baselitz revisits his childhood in East Germany through a series of paintings, Russenbilder, made from 1998 to 2005 that engage with the images of Socialist Realism and Communist propaganda.

In 2006, Baselitz begins to reassess his own work and embarks on a series of Remix paintings exploring earlier themes in his own work and the work of artists he admires like Otto Dix.

Eight years later, Baselitz begins work on the Avignon series referencing Picasso’s late work show in the French city in 1971. These works continue Baselitz’s fixation on aging, memory and loss.

Baselitz: The Retrospective (20 October 21 – 7 March 22) | Centre Pompidou