Art Market Monitor

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Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary African Art = £1.8m

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Ablade Glover, Ghananian Market Intrigue (8-12k GBP) 23,750 GBP

The market for African art continues to expand as Sotheby’s joins Bonhams in creating successful sales in the category. Led by a not-immediately-recognizable Njideka Akunyili Crosby work that made £200k over a £70k high estimate, Sotheby’s sale realised £1,802,750 ($2,555,038) or pretty much in line with the pre-sale estimates of between £1,167,500-1,707,000:

  • Ben Enwonwu, whose work Africa Dances achieved six times its high estimate to sell for £187,500 / $265,744 (est. £20,000-30,000)
  • Njideka Akunyili Crosby‘s À La Warhol, a self-portrait inspired by the silk screen portraits of Andy Warhol, sold for over double its high estimate to reach £200,000 / $283,460 (est. £50,000-70,000)
  • Bodys Isek Kingelez’s Base King soared past its presale estimate to sell for £42,500 / $60,235 (est. £10,000-15,000)
  • Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga’s Mangbetu, achieved £65,000 / $92,124, storming past the pre-sale estimate (est. £8,000-12,000)
  • Claudette Schreuders Three Sisters sold for £60,000 / $85,038 (est. £18,000-22,000)

Sotheby’s provided some statistics to go along with the sale:

  • 62 artists from 16 countries across Africa: Algeria, Morocco (North Africa), Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast , Mali, Nigeria, Senegal (West Africa), Ethiopia (East Africa), Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon (Central Africa), South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Mozambique (Southern Africa)
  • 28 works (25% of the sale) were by artists from South Africa
  • Only 6 works in the sale have ever been at auction before (5% of the sale)

Bidders and Buyers

  • Buyers from 33 different countries
  • One third of the successful bidders were from the African continent
  • 19% of buyers were new to Sotheby’s

Bonhams Rediscovers Nigerian Icon for February Sale

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Bonhams is trying something new with their African art sale at the end of February. The sale will be simulcast to an audience in Lagos, Nigeria where bidders will be able to participate directly in the sale:

Tutu, a portrait of the Ife royal princess Adetutu Ademiluyi painted in 1974 by the Nigerian artist Ben Enwonwu, leads Bonhams Africa Now sale in London on Wednesday 28 February. Enwonwu painted three versions of Tutu during 1973–74, and the image became a symbol of national reconciliation for a country struggling for unity in the wake of the Nigerian–Biafran conflict of the late 1960s. All three paintings had been considered lost until the discovery of the current picture for sale.

The series was of great personal significance to Enwonwu. The first painting, executed in 1973, remained in the artist’s studio until his death in 1994. It was lost at some point after that, and its current whereabouts are unknown. The location of the third Tutu painting is also a mystery, leaving the work for sale at Bonhams as the only known example of the image.

Bonham’s Director of Modern African Art, Giles Peppiatt said, “The portrait of Tutu is a national icon in Nigeria, and of huge cultural significance. It is very exciting to have discovered the only painting of the series that we now know still exists.  Its appearance on the market is a momentous event and we expect it to generate enormous interest.”

The auction will also include six artworks originally in the collection of the renowned art patron and philanthropist, Jean Pigozzi. When Pigozzi visited the seminal exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Magiciens de la Terre, in 1989, he was greatly excited by a number of works by contemporary African artists, many of whom had never before exhibited overseas.

African Art’s Emerging Global Popularity Is a Double-Edged Sword

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Power Figure (Nkisi N’Kondi: Mangaaka), 19th century
Kongo peoples; Yombe group (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

After Sotheby’s coltish debut African art sale in London last week, Princeton art historian Chika Okeke-Agulu wrote an op-ed for the New York Times comparing African art to a gentrifying urban neighborhood that displaces the original residents.

Okeke-Agulu’s concern is that Africa is only now beginning to get a few museums. Though he does acknowledge that the presence of African collectors who might eventually found or contribute to museums, Okeke-Agulu points out that Africa’s greatest art has been repeatedly looted by foreigners:Continue Reading

Sotheby’s Modern & Cont African Art = £2.77m

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Chéri Samba, A Successful Life

Sotheby’s first sale of Modern and Contemporary African Art was held today in London. The £2.77m total wasn’t quite what the auction house was hoping for. But there was one clear winner, Chéri Samba, the Congolese painter whose work is being featured at the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s current show of African art from the collection of Jean Pigozzi.

Of the top 15 lots in Sotheby’s sale, Samba had four works. And the work that sold the best was once owned by Pigozzi and acquired by the consignor from a sale of Pigozzi’s works in 1999.

Collector Discovers Artist Who Is All Over Instagram

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The best #sergeattukweiclottey I have seen yet, in the lobby of the #kempinskiaccra #gallery1957 Studio visit scheduled tomorrow.

A post shared by Tiroche DeLeon Collection (@sergetiroche) on

To be fair, the wording on this item in the Financial Times has enough leeway to assume that Serge Tiroche is not talking about Serge Attukwei Clottey, the Ghanaian artist who is highly visible on Instagram, when he says that he discovered two artists at the 1:54 art fair in New York. (Indeed, as the Tiroche’s IG post shows, he’s been invested in Clottey for some time.)

Nonetheless, the juxtaposition of Instagram and art fairs does increasingly raise the issue of discovery. How do we find new artists and how are their reputations built?

The fair is another far-flung experience, though being in the trendy area of Red Hook, Brooklyn, makes it something of a destination. Its small size — there were only 19 galleries — was arguably an advantage. “It’s concise, so I quickly discovered two artists,” said Serge Tiroche, who runs the Art Vantage art fund. He bought quickly too, including two charcoal portraits by the Ghanaian Serge Attukwei Clottey priced at $8,000 each through Gallery 1957 from Accra.

Tefaf takes on Frieze in Manhattan (Financial Times)

What’s In Sotheby’s First African Sale? Take a Look

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Lot 2, Cheri Samba, Une vie non ratee (A Successfu…20,000-30,000
Lot 2, Cheri Samba, Une vie non ratee (A Successfu…20,000-30,000

Sotheby’s first African art sale is lead by an El Anatsui bottle-cap piece. That’s hardly a suprise. Just look at it (below.) But the sale makes a real attempt to show off the possibilities of African Contemporary art with works like Cheri Samba’s A Successful Life (above.)

Hannah O’Leary, Sotheby’s Head of Modern and Contemporary African Art, has assembled works by more than 60 different artists from 14 countries across the continent: Algeria (North Africa), Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal (West Africa), Ethiopia and Uganda (East Africa), Cameroon and Democratic Republic of Congo (Central Africa), Angola, South Africa and Zimbabwe (Southern Africa).Continue Reading

A Pioneering Collector from Ghana Weighs His Options

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Seth Dei

Seth Dei, an American-educated entrepreneur in Ghana, faces a challenge as an art collector. He’s tried to build is own study center for the 500 paintings he owns but found the project too big.

Now in his seventies and moving to a new home, Dei is exploring his options with regard to the collection, according to this profile in the Financial Times:Continue Reading

African Art Needs Its Own Ullens to Take Off

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1:54 African Art Fair London 2013

Auction sales for African art and dealer sales are increasing and gaining increasing visibility. But the market needs a bit more to really gain traction and grow volume. The 1:54 art fair in London last week was part of that equation but the field also needs a prominent, taste-making collector to really put the category into orbit. The AP talked to Guy Ullens about the field. But as Giles Peppiatt of Bonhams knows best, African art (or really the many African arts) needs its own name:

There are signs of new interest. Among the Africa initiates at 1:54 was Belgian industrialist Guy Ullens, known for his huge trove of Chinese contemporary art.

“The quality,” the art baron said, “is very good.”

The price is also relatively cheap, when compared to art from other developing markets. Anatsui’s mesmerizing metallic tapestries can sell for more than $800,000, but many of the works on display at 1:54 – like Ove’s “Black Astronaut,” which features aviator goggles and an alligator head – carry a price tag of several thousand dollars.

Overall, the African art market’s figures remain small compared to the millions brought in by its counterparts in other developing markets.

Peppiatt said the growth over the past five years had been striking.

“I just think of where we’ve come from,” he said, “which is: nowhere.”

Increasing Interest in African Contemporary Art (AP News)

Merton Simpson Leaves a Mess Behind

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Merton Simpson, the “Abstract Expressionist painter and arguably the most significant dealer of traditional African art in the United States,” according to the New York Times, died last week and left a bit of a mess behind:

Last week Merton Simpson Jr., the artist’s son, sent an e-mail to his father’s friends asking for contributions for a funeral, including wiring instructions for a PayPal account.

“While my father had considerable assets, they are illiquid, and the family needs immediate financial assistance for a proper funeral,” Mr. Simpson wrote. “He deserves no less.”

The appeal grew partly out of a long-running and rancorous dispute over Mr. Simpson’s care and his prodigious art collection. With Mr. Simpson’s death, the finger-pointing and recriminations have reached a head, with accusations of mismanagement and exploitation.

Things got really ugly “while this man was still alive, and I knew that when he passed, it was going to get really ugly,” said Luna Devin Crystal, a longtime friend of Mr. Simpson’s, who at one point helped run the gallery.

 Art Worth Millions, Yet No Cash for Burial (New York Times)

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