Art Market Monitor

On Tuesday, Dallas-based auction house saw success in their monthly Urban Art sale. With competitive bidding for some of the category’s top names like KAWS, RETNA and Mr. Brainwash, the sale saw a 99 percent sell-through with 66 lots achieving a total of $723,250.

Among the top selling lots were three works by KAWS, who is a mainstay in urban and street art collectibles sales across the secondary market. The most expensive KAWS work sold was an untitled black and white graphic abstract on canvas dated 2014. It made $125,000. The piece was purchased at Phillips just two years earlier. Selling for $90,625, a signature KAWS plastic toy-like sculpture 4FT Dissected Companion (Black), measuring four feet high was also among the most expensive lots, exceeding its high estimate of $80,000. A 2011 blue ink canvas by Los-Angeles-based graffiti artist RETNA, a popular sell among the street art works available also sold for $40,000.

The value of online collectible auctions like these is often found in its most eccentric lots. Of the most unique items on offer in the auction was a pair of 9 ½ vintage Apple Inc. off-white sneakers, bearing the company’s iconic rainbow logo — the lot saw aggressive initial bidding and ultimately realized a price of $9,687. The rare item just nearly met its low estimate of $10,000. The shoe is known to have been made for employees between the 1980s and early 1990s as a promotional collaboration with Adidas — it is one of only two editions that have ever been offered for public sale. As 90s fashion continues to maintain its moment in luxury street wear, the time to sell seems ripe even with a coronavirus lockdown.

Retro objects from Apple’s early days have recently seen a high level of interest at auction. Earlier this month, Boston-based RR Auction sold a 1976 Apple-1 computer, comprising a still-functioning keyboard and circuit kit — one of its earliest prototypes — for a total of $458,711. In May 2019, in a Christie’s London pop culture and collectibles sale, another edition of the machine realized a price in excess of $500,000. The computers are said to each be from a group of 175 made manually by the company’s founders, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. For brand fans, the Apple memorabilia comes with the aura of Jobs legacy and also holds value as contemporary Americana.

As the auction world continues to cultivate an active collecting base on the West-coast, rare objects with tech roots may be the hook for burgeoning wealth in Silicon Valley. Pop culture merchandise moments continue to peak interest among buyers with niche tastes, and as such in the fine art categories, rarity is key.

As the impact of the coronavirus’s spread has forced the auction sector to makes major changes to its spring calendar, each of the top auction houses has announced sales calendar shifts, with Christie’s and Phillips now holding their leading 20th century week sales at the end of June and consolidating New York and London sales to be held in their Manhattan locations.

As announced last week, Sotheby’s moved a selection of live mid-spring sales online, and on Wednesday, the house confirmed plans to relocate its Hong Kong Modern and Contemporary Art Sales — which had been scheduled to be moved to New York in mid-April amid growing Covid-19 concerns — to now be moved back to their original location in Hong Kong at the beginning of July. Sotheby’s Asia CEO Kevin Ching noted the sale changes would “provide the best possible context for our consignors and buyers.”

The house’s three major Hong Kong sales affected by the change include the Modern Art Evening Sale and Contemporary Art Evening & Day Sales to coincide with the remaining sales series, which includes multiple categories comprising offerings of Chinese works of art and Southeast Asian art as well as jewels, watches, and wine.

Featuring sale highlights from the modern and contemporary evening sales such as David Hockney’s anticipated $10.3 million 30 Sunflowers from 1996 and Chinese painter Sanyu’s Quatre Nus, the traveling exhibitions slated for this week in Hong Kong and, in April, in Taipei have also been postponed with new dates yet to be announced.

At the time of this post, Sotheby’s is still holding to their May sales schedule in New York. Although Christie’s and Phillips have moved their New York sales to late June and combined them with the London sales of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art, Sotheby’s has yet to announce their own rescheduling.

Among the top lots already secured for Sotheby’s upcoming contemporary art sales — including 26 works from the collection of foremost West-coast collectors Hunk and Moo Anderson is Sam Francis’s 1956 oil painting Deep Blue, Yellow, Red estimated at $5-7 million. Francis, a northern California native and former Aviation cadet began painting seriously in 1945 after sustaining a critical injury that halted his military service.Continue Reading

Over the past two weeks, auctions around the world have taken a hit due to coronavirus, with marquee sales postponed to summer. Nevertheless, this week’s London sales have seen consistent interest among collectors for top-quality works of non-Western art. On Wednesday, a rare picture by foremost South African artist Irma Stern, Watussi Chief’s Wife, sold for £447,000 at Bonhams Modern & Contemporary African Art sale, which achieved a solid total of £1,770,000 and boasted records for eight artists. Noting the unprecedented challenges facing the art market at the moment, Giles Peppiatt, Bonhams Director of Modern & Contemporary African Art, expressed overall satisfaction with the auction’s solid results.

Stern’s market has spiked recently as keen buyers focus on overlooked modern masters. Her career-defining achievements as a painter were made in Europe and Africa amid the geo-political conflict of the 1930s. She completed the portrait in the Bonhams sale in 1946 during her second trip to the Belgian Congo. The woman depicted, a member of the Tutsi (Watussi) aristocracy, is shown in traditional ceremonial Rwandan dress, and is said to be a member of the Rwandan nobility who became a political exile after Belgian colonization in the 1930s. It is one of two portraits of the woman that were included in Stern’s major 1947 solo exhibition at the Galerie des Beaux Arts in Paris.

Peppiatt attributed the competitive bidding for the work to the sitter’s having been someone “whose innate nobility Stern deeply admired.” Other notable modern paintings were still life works by Nigerian artist Demas Nwoko, which sold for £187,000 – and another by Stern which went for £87,000.

Also contributing to the sale’s solid numbers was an archive of more than 1,000 images sourced from the family-run studio of South African photographer, Z.J.S Ndimande, which brought in £40,000. Founded in 1940, the Greystown studio was forced to relocate in 1968 due to pre-apartheid redistricting. Taken between 1964-1983, the set of photographs represent a time of communal resistance throughout the nation — regional photo studios were crucial spaces for documenting citizens during political strife, and Ndimande’s shoots vividly capture each sitter.

In the past week due to coronavirus closures, the auction world has gone through big changes. Christie’s and Phillips announced that they will consolidate their marquee 20th century sales, and they will now take place at the end of June. Bonhams also announced it will postpone all auctions until after April 21st. Meanwhile, many auction houses have closed most of their locations worldwide in compliance with recommendations from local officials.

Now, Sotheby’s has revealed scheduling changes of its own. The house said on Friday that it would move a selection of sales across multiple collecting categories with offerings in contemporary art, photographs, prints and design planned for March and April online. The upcoming London contemporary curated sale, which offers works priced in the middle value segment by both emerging artists and postwar mainstays will take place on April 14th–21st — highlights from the auction have yet to be announced. As the digital sphere becomes the haven for the international art world’s transactional health, the announcement comes with an emphasis on the burgeoning strength of the online sale sector. The house reported that, so far this year, it has brought in $20 million through online sales.

In a statement, Sotheby’s CEO Charles Stewart said that the house had experienced an increase in funds brought in through private sales. Maintaining that the house has seen strong results its many March online sale so far, Stewart said, “Sotheby’s has invested heavily in technology to ensure that we have the very best digital tools in the marketplace—including our proprietary online sale platform—which we are using to benefit and support our clients.”

Keeping in line with the art market’s emphasis on maintaining a dynamic online presence, Sotheby’s continues expand its digital sales. Having only launched the online sales just four years ago, Sotheby’s brought in $250 million through digital auctions last year, according to the house’s self-reported numbers. That marks a 55 percent increase over the number the house reported one year earlier.