This report on the Phillips's market re-opening Evening sale in July 2020 by Colin Gleadell is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.) 

Some things don’t change, even in a pandemic. As ever, Phillips piled into the contemporary art auction season last week with the smallest sale, the greatest emphasis on younger, up-and-coming artists, and the largest percentage of guarantees.

The success and record prices for the newer artists has already been listed by AMM (July 2), but what about the rest? With its niche position at the cutting edge, Phillips has experienced some reluctance by sellers to part with higher value blue chip and historic 20^th century art.  Chairman Ed Dolman has always said it was necessary for Phillips to extend guarantees to sellers to get high value property in for sale and so compete with the ruling duopoly. In this sale 12 works were guaranteed (i.e., half the lots), though not the hot young artists, with a combined low estimate of $24.4 million. That’s 84.3% of the low estimate value for the whole sale which was $29.4 million. This guarantee percentage is high by any standards for a mixed owner sale. Regardless of how profitable or not the sale will have been (the total hammer price of the guaranteed lots was $24.8 million and Dolman said he was happy with the results), it helps to explain how they achieved their $41 million ‘white glove sale.’  (Unless otherwise stated, estimates do not include the buyer’s premium, but sold prices do).

Away from the bullish prices paid for relative newcomers Titus Kaphar, Matthew Wong, Amoako Boafo et al, the market was showing signs of restraint. Banksy’s unique painting, Monkey Poison, 2004, had a hefty $1.8/2.5 million estimate and sold on the low estimate to a solitary bid, presumably on behalf of Phillips which guaranteed the painting, from Miety Heiden to bring $2 million – the second highest auction price on record for Banksy. Certainly, it lacked that element of surprise which often accompanies his work as Phillips had exhibited it in a Banksy exhibition staged in Hong Kong in 2018 and then New York early this year.

This report on the Sotheby's market re-opening Evening sale for June 2020 by Colin Gleadell is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.) 

Sotheby’s breakthrough $363 million sale on Tuesday night sparked much immediate reporting (not least from AMM), but bears deeper inspection now that the rush to publish first is over and sleep deprivation has been put behind.

Starting with the Ginny Williams collection, it was significant on many different levels. It drew attention to this undoubtedly insightful collector/dealer who focussed on women artists – not at the time that they were making, but later in the 90s. So she was at the spearhead of revisionism. And she bought mostly from other dealers. The top lot, Lee Krasner’s Re-Echo, 1957, which sold for $9 million over a $4/6 m estimate, was bought from Robert Miller in 1991 when there was little resale market for her work. In that year, the market was in recession and only one painting of hers went to auction. That was also from 1957 but slightly smaller, and it sold below estimate for $71,500. Krasner has more recently been feted with museum exhibitions all over Europe and has been riding a crest of resurgent interest typified by the rehang at MoMA in favor of diverse artists.

In a similar category is Helen Frankenthaler who, since her estate was taken over by Gagosian in 2012, has been experiencing a price resurgence, most clearly in this sale with a painting Williams bought in 1993 for $818,500 (a record then) and which now sold for a new record $7.9 million . And then there is Joan Mitchell who is also benefitting from an uptake in Asia. At the Williams sale, where there were three examples, interest appeared to be all American, and not flying far over their quite reasonable estimates ($4/7 million compared to her record $16.6 million). With further examples coming up at Phillips tonight and Christie’s on July 10, there is no shortage of supply to excite demand.

It was also notable that Sotheby’s had guaranteed the whole Williams collection before the pandemic, so were confident they could sell with sensible estimates; and that ten of these lots attracted third party guarantees just before the sale – signifying a desire not to just want a painting, but a belief that a quick profit could be made in the middle of the worst health and economic crisis anyone living in the West, at least, has experienced. As even in times of war, some people just get richer—and these days it’s hedge funders and the new providers, like Jeff Bezos, who have an interest in art.

This report on the Picasso market by Colin Gleadell is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.) 

The dearth of live auctions during lockdown, and especially the big Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary sales in New York and London has provided little public information on what is happening at the top for headline artists. (Though there have been some big private sales said to have been completed.) To take the most obvious—if there ever was an artist who could ride a downturn, it has to be Picasso. A current public perspective could start with Sotheby’s Picasso sale yesterday and lead to some heavyweight lots coming up in the summer—who is selling and how much for.

This week’s sale of sixty lower value works by Picasso ( i.e., prints, drawings and ceramics from £500 to 50,000,) from the collection of his granddaughter, Marina Picasso, whom he largely ignored during his lifetime, was the tenth such sale staged by Sotheby’s and highlighted the importance of provenance in the Picasso market.

Marina inherited some 10,000 works following the artist’s death in 1973 and, because of their uneasy relationship, has had no emotional attachment to them. Their sales, however, have helped to support her favored children’s charities, her own children and grandchildren, not to mention a comfortable personal lifestyle.

For 28 years, she sold through the Swiss dealer, Jan Krugier, and after his death in 2005 she turned to Sotheby’s. Her most valuable works have sold as single lots raising some £200 million, but the greatest quantity of work has been assembled in single owner sales of lower value material – raising an estimated £40 million. Most of the drawings were unsigned, relying on provenance and his tendency to inscribe dates precisely for authenticity.