Art Market Monitor

Following news that the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York, would deaccession a Jackson Pollock at auction, another institution has said it will sell works from its holdings. Today, the New York Times reported that the Brooklyn Museum in New York is selling 12 works from its permanent collection at Christie’s to raise capital for the maintenance of its collection. Works by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Gustave Courbet, and Camille Corot, among others, will be sold across Christie’s upcoming Old Masters and European Art sales on October 15 at the house’s New York headquarters. Other works from the Brooklyn Museum will be sold in two online sales, with bidding open from October 1–20.

Christie’s confirmed the total pre-sale estimated value of the 12 works is $2.3 million–$3.5 million. All of the works from the Brooklyn Museum collection come to the market with guarantees.

In April, amid financial strain during the coronavirus pandemic, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) issued an update to its standard code for deaccessions, saying that museums could now sell works from their permanent holdings in order to fund collection upkeep. Historically, the AAMD has maintained that all proceeds from museum sales should be used for new acquisitions (although the restriction is not legally mandated). The window to sell works for collection management is open until April 10, 2022.

Museum deaccessions have long been met with public criticism. Anne Pasternak, the Brooklyn Museum’s director, told The New York Times that, while the decision to deaccession works was difficult, it is the practical move to ensure the collection’s longevity. Pasternak reported the institution’s goal is to establish a $40 million fund, generating an annual $2 million to pay for the management of the 160,000-item collection.

The sale is part of the museum’s previously initiated collection review. Last year, the Brooklyn Museum sold a major Francis Bacon painting titled Pope (ca. 1958) from the artist’s Tangiers period at Sotheby’s in New York in order to raise money to support its collection. The work was gifted to the museum in 1981. It sold at its low estimate for $6.6 million.

Lucas Cranach the Elder’s 16th-century painting Lucretia is among the top lots headed to sale, valued at $1.2 million to $1.8 million. The Cranach will be sold alongside others by Donato de’ Bardi, Giovanni dal Ponte, Francesco Botticini, and a portrait attributed to Lorenzo Costa in Christie’s Old Masters evening sale. Another set of works including those by Gustave Courbet, Camille Corot, Hendrik Willem Mesdag, and Charles-François Daubigny will sell in Christie’s European Art sale on the same day. Corot’s 19th-century portrait of a woman, titled Italienne debout tenant une cruches, is among the highest-valued lots of the ones headed to the European Art sale. It is expected to achieve a price between $200,000–$300,000.

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Freemans has unveiled a Jackson Pollock landscape painting once thought to be lost to sell at auction this fall. The work will be offered in a single-owner sale of works from the collection of Philadelphia’s Dr. Henry and Mrs. Fannie Levine. The Pollock will go up for sale on October 5 at Freeman’s Philadelphia location alongside works by modern artists like Karel Appel, Paul Jenkins, and Bernard Buffet. Pollock’s Pennsylvania Landscape (1936) is expected to achieve a price between $60,000-$100,000.

The small-scale 1936 farmhouse scene is an example from Pollock’s early career. He completed the series of landscapes while employed by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project. This was around the time he studied under American painter Thomas Hart Benton, whose images of rural America, painted during the 1930s Depression Era art movement, influenced Pollock’s early style. Benton was an early collector of his student’s work. He acquired Red Barn and Rolling Hills during his mentorship of the emerging painter.

Principally known for this gestural drip paintings, Pollock’s early landscapes do not come to the market often. A comparable work, Untitled (Landscape with Tree to Right), also completed in 1936, features a similar scene of rolling hills. It was sold at Sotheby’s during a contemporary day sale in May 2013 for $281,000, beating its high estimate of $150,000. Prior to the 2013 sale, it sold at Christie’s in 1986 for $22,000. The present work on offer at Freemans last sold at Sotheby’s New York in 1974.

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Sotheby’s has announced top lots for a new sales series in Paris this October. Works will go up for sale in a new live-streamed evening sale event titled “Modernités/Contemporary”– two back-to-back sales comprising works of European modern and contemporary art. Scheduled to take place on October 21, the event will feature the same televised, remote sale model debuted in the summer auction series.

Sotheby’s European Chairman Helena Newman will lead the Paris modern evening sale portion from London’s ‘control centre’ for the first portion of the Paris auction. As seen in the summer mega-sales, the auctioneer will field bids in concert with remote colleagues in London, Paris, New York and Asia. Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s European Chairman, will then take over for the Sotheby’s fall Contemporary Art Evening auction.

Among the top lots in the Paris modern series are Pierre Soulages’s untitled 1956 painting estimated at €700,000-€1 million ($800,000-$1.2 million), Francis Picabia’s Minos (1929) estimated at €2.8-3.5 million ($3.3 million-$4.1 million), and Yves Tanguy’s Composition Surrealiste (1941) estimated at €1-1.5 million ($1.2 million-$1.8 million). Pablo Picasso’s portrait Tête d’Homme (1940), a work on paper, is another leading lot set to go up for sale with the estimate available upon request. A private collection of 25 modernist lots will highlight the sale with a total value in excess of €10 million ($12 million). Many of the works have never been on the market.

In the contemporary segment, a black and white painting by British artist Bridget Riley completed circa 1960s will go up for sale. The work is estimated at £5.5 million-7.5 million ($7 million-$9.6 million). Sotheby’s expects the work to set a new record for the artist, whose highest auction of €4 million ($4.7 million) was achieved in 2019.Continue Reading

Last week, Dallas-based Heritage auction brought in a total of $3.8 million in the first portion of a four-part auction series dedicated to sales of Comic memorabilia and original artwork. The house achieved top prices for works by Frank Frazetta and Lee Ellias alongside recognizable comic titles during the sale.

Among the leading lots of the sale was Frank Frazetta’s painting, The Princess of Mars (1970), which sold for $1.2 million. A seminal example from the artist’s illustration career of the 1970s and 1980s, another version of the work was originally made for Edgar Rice Burroughs’ publication of the same title in 1970. It is the fourth Frazetta piece sold by Heritage Auctions in the last four years to achieve over the $1 million price point.

“Frank Frazetta always felt that his art transcended genres,” said Nadia and Joe Mannarino, Co-Heads of Heritage Auctions’ East Coast Comic Books and Original Comic Art category. “This is the rare case when the second version is even better than the published one” said Barry Sandoval, Heritage Auctions’ Vice President.Continue Reading

Christie’s will offer a massive Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton this fall. Known as “Stan,” the specimen is 67 million years old. In an unexpected move, the fossil is set to hit the block during Christie’s Evening Sale of 20th Century art on October 6 and will be on public display at the house’s Rockefeller center location until October 21. It is expected to fetch between $6 million to $8 million.

Stan’s skeleton stands at 13 feet high and 40 feet long. Comprising 188 original bones, it is one of the few completely assembled skeletons of its kind. It was first unearthed in the late 1980s at Hell Creek Formation, located between South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. In 1992, commercial fossil dealers from the Black Hills Institute in Hill City, South Dakota, excavated the remaining bones. Evaluations from scientists reveal details from the animal’s life. It survived various wounds inflicted by members of its own species.

The dinosaur comes to auction from the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, a private organization headed by commercial fossil dealer and collector Pete Larson. The institute displayed and studied the specimen for the last two decades. Larson, a controversial figure in the paleontology world, is associated with the record-setting dinosaur sale of “Sue,” the 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton at Sotheby’s in 1997. With help from private and corporate funding, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago bought the skeleton for $8.4 million. It was expected to achieve $1 million.

As the case with Sue, the sale is likely to attract museum interest. Christie’s statement on the sale describes it as “a rare opportunity for a collector, institution, or museum benefactor to acquire the extraordinary fossil skeleton.”

Sue’s story was a dramatic one. The fossil was the subject of a custody battle between Larson with the Montana land-owner from which she was excavated. The skeleton was seized by the U.S. government from the Black Hills Institute during the lawsuit and the fossil eventually went to the land-owner, who brought it to auction. Though charges related to the Sue lawsuit were dropped, Larson was convicted separately for customs fraud and other offenses. Sue was sold at Sotheby’s New York headquarters shortly after Larson was released from prison.

Other high-profile public sales of dinosaur fossils have received significant attention at auction in the past. In June 2018, a dinosaur skeleton fetched €2.36 million ($2.8 million) at the Aguttes auction house in Paris in a controversial sale that drew criticism from scientists. The Society for Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) wrote to the French auction house calling for the sale to be canceled. The fossil ultimately went to a private French art collector. And in 2009, Samson, another nearly complete T. rex skeletons achieved at top price in a dramatic sale. It failed to meet its reserve at a Las Vegas auction, but later sold privately in-house for around $5 million (£3.8 million).