Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis
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This analysis of the September 2018 Mid-season Contemporary in New York is available to AMMpro subscribers. Recent reports will be available to all viewers initially before going behind the paywall. Monthly subscriptions begin with the first month free. Feel free to subscribe and cancel before you are billed.
The Mid-season Contemporary art sales in New York were smaller this year than either in the Spring or last Fall. Whether that is a harbinger of a slow down in the middle market which has heretofore been a powerful driver of sales activity or simply a reflection of the shift in the broader market toward these types of works, remains to be seen. The marquee sales in November and May have a gravitational pull for consignors. Both day and evening sales have become more accessible to artists and works that might have previously starred in these types of shoulder season sales.
Take, for example, the two top lots among the three houses. One was a Frank Stella geometric painting that sold for $2.66m, toward the low end of the $2-3m estimate. The other was a study for the Kerry James Marshall work that sold for a record $21.1m earlier in the year. In 2017, those top lots were quite different.
The top lot of the 2017 sales cycle was a Milton Avery work that made $3.66m above the $3m high estimate calling attention to Avery's work which would also perform exceptionally well during the Rockefeller estate sales. The second lot of that cycle was a Joan Mitchell work that sold for $3.3m over a $2m high estimate. We've all seen the momentum that continues to drive through the upper reaches of the Mitchell market still.
There are more clues about the meaning of these sales results deeper in the data. But let's first look at some of the top line figures and compare them to a year ago.
***We've had comments from readers about the drop in sales. It is important to remember that there are two ways to look at sales cycles. One is to include all similar works sold during the same period to record the market demand and selectivity. That's what we did with our original report which included single-owner sales at each of the houses. That's what accounts for the drop in sales from 2017 to 2018. Sotheby's had two single-owner sales in the period and Phillips had another where KAWS first demonstrated some of his market momentum that continues today.
The second way is to look at like-for-like sales comparisons. Here it is worth reviewing how the mid-season contemporary sales performed year-over-year with the single-owner sales excluded. Why? Because you can see an important growth trend in the middle market persisting. According to numbers shared with us by Sotheby's, the September sales looked like this:
2018 Premium Total: $57.3m 2017 Premium Total: $46.6m
2018 Average Price: $72.2k 2017 Average Price: $51.5k
Hammer Ratio: 1.03 . Hammer Ratio: 1.11
The rise in premium total was 23% year over year. But the average price rose a whopping 40%. The fall in the hammer ration (the hammer price divided by the low estimate) shows that bidding stayed closer to the estimate range. A slightly higher rate of works getting bought in, 24% versus 21% the year before suggests that estimates have finally caught up with the market. The shoulder season sales are no longer bargain bins where collectors, dealers and advisors go to find overlooked works of value.
These numbers are the culmination of a trend that can be seen across the four sales offered in the last two years that saw a progression from the Spring of 2017 where the the premium total was $44.6m and the hammer ratio, 1.19; to Fall 2017's $46.6m, 1.11; to Spring 2018 where the total was still higher at $53m with a 1.07 ratio; to Fall 2018's $57.3m, with a minimal 1.03 ratio. It's easy to see the way the estimates and hammer prices are converging as specialists get a better grip on the market. Curiously, the average prices bounce around the $50k range for three of the four sales cycles. But then the average price jumped this September.
We try to stay out of the horse race between the houses in these sales analyses. But to be fair to Sotheby's who flagged this data, we can look at some differences between the houses. Sotheby's consistently has the higher average prices in the $70k range in 2017 and the low $100k range this year. But Christie's saw the biggest jump in average prices from consistent $50k range to $76k this past season. Christie's also consistently has a hammer ratio below 1 showing their mid-season estimates are aggressive.
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Art Agency, Partners comments on the Richter market in their inaugural newsletter. Under the heading ‘Misreadings,’ AAP says:
One of the major stories in 2016 was the looming scepter of art market collapse both in general and for specific artists, which, ultimately, proved exaggerated while the reasons for reticence were misunderstood. Take the Gerhard Richter. In the first half of the year, two mature abstracts of large scale for which there had been substantial financial expectation were withdrawn from auction. Based on this fact, there was widespread talk of a pullback in the Richter market.
AAP goes on to object to the idea that there has been a pullback in Richter’s market calling such a view “premature talk of a nonexistent stall.”
It’s not entirely clear what AAP is trying to say here but AAP does link to our post on the announcement of the third Richter sold by Eric Clapton. So we’re going to assume the writer has conflated our discussion of the market for large Richter abstracts with talk of an art market collapse (which would be very hard to find on these pages.)
Further below, we’ll address AAP’s argument. But to understand the market for large Richter abstracts, let’s look a chart (above.) These are the paintings that have driven much—but far from all—of the interest in the artist over the past few years. More to the point, the abstracts, in general, and the large works of five feet or more, in particular, have accounted for a substantial portion of the artist’s auction volume.
Over the course of two distinct periods, you can see from the chart above, the market for large Richter abstracts grew in price, frequency and volume.Continue Reading
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It has been a big year for George Condo's market. Five of his top ten prices—including the works that are in the number one and two slots—were sold 2016. Eight of the top 15 prices came this year too. Half of those in the November sales in New York where the Ames collection provided five of the six works on offer at Sotheby's. And three of those achieved top 15 prices.
Judging simply from the nearly $2m record price for the artist set during a July charity auction for Leonardo DiCaprio's foundation or the $1.3m paid during a Sotheby's day sale in May, the demand for Condo's work has come as a bit of a surprise to auction specialists.
With 10 works on offer—two at Christie's, two Phillips and the Ames works plus another at Sotheby's—the November sales were a real market test for the artist. The number of Condo works on stands at Art Basel in Miami Beach a few weeks after the November sales only confirmed what was seen in the auction rooms.
Every one of the ten Condos on offer sold. Only two had to take the low estimate with an additional work landing within the estimate range. The rest were bid above the high estimates with several works subject to intensive bidding.
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Last year, the good folks at Artnet produced data on the Warhol market for us. They were kind enough to provide us with an update from their database. The results are striking. Total sales of Warhol paintings dropped by 74% between 2015 and 2016.
There's been a fair bit of attention paid to the fact that the auction market overall has been down 40-50% in the same period. Not only did Warhol stop acting as a motor of the art market; his sales have consistently driven the Contemporary market higher over the last decade and a half; but his market has become a significant absence.
(There's a more detailed look at these numbers for AMMpro subscribers, below, but for those who simply want to look at this graph, above, the information is pretty clear.) Warhol sales punctuate what may have been a major market pause.
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