Art Market Monitor

Last week, Christie’s concluded its top Latin American Art sale rescheduled from its original date in the Spring. With 75 lots on offer ranging from Spanish colonial paintings from the 17th to 18th centuries to Latin American modernists the sale brought in $14 million, down 18% from the previous year total in the May equivalent sale that had 134 lots.

Latin American artists saw a host of new benchmarks this season with the female surrealists seeing heightened collecting interest. The highest priced lots were by modernists for abstract works by Wifredo Lam and Rufino Tamayo. Lam’s Femme Cheval from 1950 placed with a buyer for $2.4 million, landing within its estimate of $2 million to $3 million. That work came to the market for the first time since 1983 from the estate of collector, William Campbell. Lam was the subject of solo surveys at Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York and at Havana’s Parque Central in 1950. These two shows helped promote the femmes cheval series to international acclaim.

Tamayo’s double-figured 1950 painting Dos amantes contemplando la luna achieved $2.3 million hammering near its low estimate. The work had resurfaced on the market after two decades in a private collection. British artist, Leonara Carrington who spent decades of her formative career in Mexico also saw a high result in the auction. Her 1941 painting La joie de patinage (The Joy of Skating) was formerly owned by Alexina Duchamp, ex-wife of Henri Matisse and second wife of Marcel Duchamp. Boasting a strong provenance, the work is valuable for its similarities to her Bird Superior: Portrait of Max Ernst, painted around 1939 in Saint Martin d’Ardèche when she lived with the famous Surrealist. The work placed in the middle of its estimate range, making $519,000, and establishing the work the top 20 prices achieved by the artist at auction.Continue Reading

Following the end of its summer auction series restructured to replace the marquee auctions in New York and London normally held during the Spring, Sotheby’s has released its sales total for the first half of the year.  At $2.5 billion, Sotheby’s sales for the year to date (January 1 to July 31 2020) was down 25% from 2019 when the global total was $3.3 billion. Considering the disruption created by global closures of major sales centers to combat the spread of Covid-19, the drop was some less than the catastrophic outlook in March and April of this year before Sotheby’s had created its live auction model now run twice to substantial success.

Over the course of a two-month period, Sotheby’s was able to make $1.2 billion in sales through its New York, Hong Kong, London, Paris and Geneva locations.  Another $575 million in sales came through David Schrader’s private sales division with the remainder coming from auctions held before the global hiatus.

“The art and luxury markets have proven to be incredibly resilient, and demand for quality across categories is unabated.” said Sotheby’s CEO, Charles Stewart in a statement.Continue Reading

On Thursday, Christie’s announced it will lend its online platform for a new exhibition devoted exclusively to Black artists. Lead by 24-year-old New York-based curator and art adviser, Destinee Ross-Sutton (@desti.knee) the private selling show titled SAY IT LOUD (I’m Black and I’m Proud) will run from July 31–August 17. Bringing more than 40 works works by 22 emerging and mid-career Black artists to buyers at fixed prices with a total value of $400,000.

Celine Cunha, Post-War and Contemporary Art Specialist serves as Co-Chairman of the Corporate Social Responsibility Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives and led the company’s first collaboration with Ross-Sutton, which also includes a panel series with the Harlem Arts Alliance. The programming, according to a press release, provides “a necessary platform for the Black Art community’s voices to be amplified and empowered.”

Ross-Sutton is among the youngest independent curators to organize a series of exhibitions at prominent international institutions. Her ties to collectors building portfolios of Black artists span the U.S., Europe and Asia. Regardless of her age, Ross-Sutton is unique among conventional art advisers in that she is a recurring figure in the works of artists like Kehinde Wiley and Ghanian-born painter, Amoafo Boako, among others. In her latest endeavor, she organized BLACK VOICES/BLACK MICROCOSMS at Sweden’s CHFILL featuring 30 leading emerging Black contemporary artists, including Rashaad Newsome, David Shrobe, Boafo, Quaicoe, and others.

For Ross-Sutton, choosing the pieces to include came down to those strikingly expressive— the selection process involved “seeing who is either beginning to express their voices—showing the human condition, within being Black, in such profound ways,” said the adviser. The group of works were each produced within the last three years and come to the market as new examples of contemporary Black art practices spanning international contexts. One of the artists featured is self-taught Nigerian-born painter, Eniwaye Oluwaseyi, who initially introduced Ross-Sutton to the Christie’s project. His 2020 painting, The Breakfast featuring two starkly-rendered subjects seated opposite each other in a dining room scene is among the highest valued works with a price of $13,000.

A 2017 piece by New York-based multi-media artist, Bard-educated Azikiwe Mohammed titled Unarmed is also among the other high value offerings. The piece, which features metallic nameplates laid against a red-backed jewelry board lists names of Black individuals killed by police in 2016. An edition of the work was last shown at Spring Break Art Show in his solo installation in 2016 at a price of $8,200, and now comes to the Christie’s online sale at a price of $11,000. “This work definitely stood out to me,” said Ross-Sutton, adding that what it provides to the viewer is “a look at, in such as simple but impactful way, how the system failed us.”

Known for his installations made of vintage materials built as imagined spaces of respite for Black Americans, Azikiwe Mohammed’s recent accomplishments include a 2019 solo exhibition at the SCAD museum and a residency at Mana Contemporary. Mohammed is also the current subject of a solo exhibition at Brooklyn’s Elijah Wheat Showroom. Nigerian artist, Collins Obijiaku, another newcomer featured in the April 2020 CHFILL showcase has an untitled ochre-ground portrait of a young man in the show on offer at a price of $6,500.

Two photographs by acclaimed Houston-based filmmaker, Cary Fagan— who has shot projects for Solange Knowles, including her 2019 Marfa visual album “When I Get Home”, an album cover for ASAP Rocky, and whose images appeared in Antwaun Sargent’s 2019 exhibition, “The New Black Vanguard” — are included in the show. Blood Shed and Dinner Table executed in January 2020 during Fagan’s residency in Italy are available at a price up to $1,200. Elsewhere in the selling exhibition is Los-Angeles based painter, Yoyo Lander’s monumental three figure triptych HAVE TEARS, priced at $35,000. The artist has held a series of solo shows, most recently at Los Angeles-based arts collective, Band of Vices.

Ross-Sutton hopes to sell works to collections with long-term promise. And so far, none of the fifteen Amoako Boafo works she has placed in private collections have yet surfaced at auction. To protect artist markets from speculative buyers, she cites dealing works to judicious collectors and longer period resale terms in sales contracts as key strategies.

The initiative, Sutton argues, is a step in the right direction for the auction behemoth. Christie’s is relinquishing any direct financial interest in the project, with all proceeds going to the artists. What the firm gains is an introduction to new clients and crucial collectors data. As online channels are drawing in buyers at lower price points, auction houses are looking for ways to connect with an emerging class of new buyers. Those who register and transact in the online sale, a portion of whom Ross-Sutton will be liaising with directly, are potential long-term clients for the auction house.

Ross-Sutton, who was approached by Christie’s about one month ago for the project was initially reticent given the current climate around corporate programming in response to the Black Lives Matter protest movement. Yet the opportunity to provide a global platform to young talent proved invaluable to the advisor. “Christie’s tells us what the value of work is. It’s a massive platform,” said Ross-Sutton, noting that among her primary concerns is bringing exposure to the stable of artists she manages.

“It’s a bit beyond promoting the artists that I work with” said Ross-Sutton looking at the big picture. “They’re willing to offer their works to say this is just the beginning, the first of a series of collaborations along this effort to really make actual change.”

Celine Cunha confirmed this is indeed a part of the sale’s strategy. “One of the goals of this exhibition is to cultivate new and emerging buyers” said Cunha. “Our strategy is to cater to emerging clients and to grow our programs for collectors of color. We also want to ensure the artists in Say It Loud are placed in institutions and important existing collections.”

Additional artists included in the sale under Ross-Sutton’s management include Juwon Aderemi, Joshua Michael Adokuru, Isshaq Ismail, Jerome Lagarrigue, Nelson Makamo, Khari Turner and Wonder Buhle.

Christie’s is auctioning works by a host of top names in American art including Andrew Wyeth, Childe Hassam and Mary Cassatt across 87 lots in an online auction that will run until August 7th. The sale is expected to net a total in excess of $4.5 million.

Among the works carrying notable provenance are seven lots consigned by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, sold to benefit the institution. American artist Andrew Wyeth’s 1951 work, Prevailing Wind, which depicts a rooftop scene in Maine coming from the museum’s holdings and is slated with a pre-sale estimate of $50,000-70,000.

Another from the Texas museum collection is Reginald Marsh’s double-sided work Carousel and Girls on a Boardwalk, dated 1941-52— an example of the artist’s signature subject matter chronicling New York City life in the 1920s to 1930s. During the pre-war period, Paris-born Marsh studied at New York’s Art Students League under American art mainstays like John Sloan, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and George Luks. Also prominent surveyors of urban life in the modern age, these artists came to widely influence Marsh’s subject matter. The work on offer in the online sale carries an estimate of $12,000 to $18,000.

Last exhibited publicly in 1977, Marsh’s piece is one example among several in the group boasting a long holding period in a prominent American art collection. Both works by Wyeth and Marsh were originally held in the collection of Texas-based philanthropic organization and prominent arts backer, the William E. Scott Foundation of Fort Worth. Each of the works were gifted from the foundation’s collection to the city’s museum between 1954 and 1963.

One of the top priced lots in the sale’s offering is Mary Cassatt’s Two Little Sisters dated 1901-02. The early modern portrait of two young children is from the storied collection of influential Chicago collectors, Robert B. and Beatrice C. Mayer—for whom a center at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is named— after being held privately since 1958, the work is now coming to the market at an estimate of $400,000-600,000.

Christie’s secured the highly competitive Mayer collection for sale last year, bringing a selection of high caliber works from the couple’s foremost American postwar holdings, including Roy Lichtenstein’s $31 million 1962 painting, The Kiss and Robert Rauschenberg’s $89 million 1964 assemblage work, Buffalo II. Each of the works sold in the house’s marquee New York evening sale in May 2019.

Elsewhere in the sale, a watercolor seaside scene by Wyeth’s son, Jamie Wyeth, titled Open Seas from 1969 is available to bidders at an of $70,000-100,000. In addition, a group of modernist works are represented in the auction’s offerings with sculptures by Polish-American artist, Elie Nadelman; Lithuanian-born sculptor, Boris Lovet-Lorski and French-American, Gaston Lachaise, alongside paintings and works on paper by Milton Avery, Charles Green Shaw and Wolf Kahn.