Art Market Monitor

This report on the Sotheby's Contemporary Day sale for June 2020 by Angelica Villa 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.) 

Following Sotheby’s staggering $362.3 million evening sale, the market test continued into Tuesday's contemporary day sale. 212 lots by postwar and contemporary brand names like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Ryman and Ruth Asawa came to auction, realizing a total sale price of $51.5 million and seeing an 83% sell-through rate overall.

The highly anticipated evening sales brought to the post-coronavirus market a long-awaited test of confidence, showing that even in a fragile socio-economic climate, the top end of the art market remains resilient. Leading the contemporary Day sale was minimalist painter Robert Ryman’s off-white monochrome Contract from 1998 which brought in $2.72 million, hammering below its pre-sale estimate range of $3 million to $4 million. It was purchased by the seller in 2009 at New York’s Luhring Augustine. California sculptor Ruth Asawa’s hanging lobed 1956 sculpture went for $2.6 million, after drawing 21 bids against an estimate of $2 million to $3 million. The work was consigned from the estate of Adrian and Joan Skewes-Cox Malone. The record price for Asawa at auction recently moved to $4 million for a hanging sculpture sold at Christie's New York in November 2019. Alexander Calder’s hanging mobile Occhio Giallo from 1956 reached above its high estimate, achieving $1.64 million with the buyer’s fee against an estimate of $1 million to $1.5 million.

This report on the Sotheby's Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Evening sale for June 2020 by Angelica Villa 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.) 

On Monday, Sotheby’s staged its marquee contemporary, Impressionist, and modern evening auctions in its first live session featuring a fully remote format. The long-awaited market trial took place in the New York headquarters following several months of live auction hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic. The leading lots were works by top postwar names—Francis Bacon, Clyfford Still, and Roy Lichtenstein, with Jean-Michel Basquiat not far behind. The sale achieved a total of $363.2 million across the three evening auctions and a 93 percent sell-through rate overall.

Head auctioneer Oliver Barker addressed the virtual audience from his podium in London in a surreal multi-camera global livestream connecting teams across time zones spanning Hong Kong, London, and New York. Kicking off the evening sale was the Ginny Williams collection, a far-sighted gathering of works by female modernists, which saw an impressive 100 percent sell-through rate to bring in a total of $65.5 million, easily outdoing its $51.7 million high estimate. The contemporary art evening auction that followed featured ten pieces from the Collection of Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson, among significant others; that sale realized a total $234.9 million. Only one lot, a Basquiat painting from the collection of Robert Farris Thompson failed to find a buyer.

At the high-value end of the auction, modern master Francis Bacon’s large format Triptych from 1981, inspired by Aeschylus’s trilogy of Greek tragedies dating to the 5th century B.C, drew prolonged bidding. Online and phone bids brought the work within its estimate range of $60 million to $80 million before the hammer came down at $74 million, landing at its ultimate selling price of $84.5 million with buyers premium. The work’s consignor is Norwegian collector, Hans Rasmus Astrup who bought the work in 1984 and is selling the work to raise funds for his private foundation, the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo. It is the 6th large-format triptych ever to come to auction and the first of its kind since 2014. The sale marks the third highest price achieved at auction for the postwar mainstay.

Pop master Roy Lichtenstein’s White Brushstroke I from 1965 sold for $27 million landing within its estimate of $20 million to $30 million. The highest price paid for another Brushstroke from 1965 featuring a similar scheme by the artist went for $28.5 million in a Sotheby’s contemporary evening sale in May 2017. Clyfford Still’s abstract work PH-144 (1947-Y-NO.1) from the storied West Coast collection of Hunk and Moo Anderson hammered at its $25 million low estimate, bringing in a total sale price of $28.7 million with buyer’s premium.

This report on the Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Day sale for June 2020 by Angelica Villa 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.) 

On Monday, Sotheby’s staged the first leg of its marquee 20th century art auctions with its Impressionist and Modern art day sale in New York ahead of the auction houses' first fully remote evening sale. The day auction brought in $16.7 million from the sale of 166 lots. A solid 83 percent sell-through rate and active virtual bidding allowed the results to come in almost exactly in line with the May 2019 day sale which reached $16.6 million from 229 lots.

Leading the auction was Belgian surrealist Paul Delvaux’s 1974 oil on panel L’imperatrice depicting an off-centered white cloaked female figure against a moon-lit background in a surrealist landscape. It sold for $1.16 million or slightly below its pre-sale estimate of $1 million to $1.5 million (when the buyer's premium is accounted for) to an online bidder after seven bids. Two advance bids came in before the lot went up for sale. The work has only changed hands twice before. It was purchased by the seller in a Christie’s London sale in December 1997 for £221,500, where it appeared from a private Belgium collection. It was widely exhibited throughout Japan in the 1980s.

This Art Basel OVR sales report 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.) 

Last week, Art Basel closed its second online edition with a number of blue-chip names returning to the fair’s virtual platform. 282 vendors staged online sales in this June session, following the fair’s cancellation of its September edition announced earlier this month. Top bluechip dealers reported early sales for contemporary heavyweights, along with an increased acclimation to the virtual world of art collecting. Here is what sold in this edition of Art Basel's online fair: