Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis
Although none of the most highly touted lots at Sotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern art last night exceeded their estimates, there were plenty of sleeper hits. Here are a few of the lots that exceeded Sotheby’s expectations by significant margins.
An amusing tidbit from the The Art Newspaper: Larry Gagosian is now advertising on London’s double-decker buses. A well-timed advertising ploy indeed, assuming that this campaign was launched to coincide with the art world’s infiltration of London for the bid 3rd quarter art sales.
Larry’s ads on London buses (The Art Newspaper)
Carol Vogel gives the rundown on last night’s “lackluster” Impressionist and Modern evening sale at Sotheby’s London. The $165.2 million sale did fall within its estimate of $148.4 million to $217.5 million, and the most highly anticipated lot, a self-portrait by Manet did achieve a new record for the artist ($33 million), but the tone of Vogel’s article indicates that the sale (and the Manet) failed to wow.
She notes that there was only bidder chasing the Manet and quotes dealer Richard Feigen who suggests that the Manet failed to go over estimate because it may be over the heads of many members of the art-buying public:
“The Manet put a damper on the evening,” said Richard L. Feigen, another New York dealer, adding that the painting was not well suited to being sold at auction. “It was a great picture, but he’s not an auction artist,” Mr. Feigen said; the work was too intellectual to have the commercial appeal of paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Giacometti and Modigliani that have brought record-breaking prices over the last few months.
A Lackluster Art Auction in London (The New York Times)
AAM recently learned that on Friday, Asher Edelman “filed an action against the financially impaired Emigrant Bank.”
The legal trouble between Edelman and Emigrant began in March, when Emigrant sued Edelman over a history of “late payments, missed payments, other defaults and collateral sales,” according to this Reuters report published last month. The report also included the following quote from Edelman, which foreshadows his recent action against Emigrant:
“I have paid the bank what I believe I owe,” said Edelman, who now runs the Edelman Arts modern art gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “I’m angry. I seldom get angry, but I am.”
Ex-raider Edelman fights back over Giacometti loan (Reuters)
Beijing’s leading auction house China Guardian just wrapped up their 22nd edition of quarterly auctions: 2300 works of art sold (over three days) for $311 million. As Colin Gleadell notes in his roundup of market news, that puts China Guardian ahead of Western rivals Christie’s and Sotheby’s:
Beijing auctioneers China Guardian has thrown down the gauntlet to Sotheby’s and Christie’s highly successful Asian operations in Hong Kong with a $311 million series of art and antiques sales, placing them ahead of the Western auctioneers ($256 million and $293 million respectively) at the end of the spring auction series.
Art market news: Dealers at Art Basel sell fast (The Telegraph)
