Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

Polaroid Preview

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NPR previews Sotheby’s forthcoming Polaroid sale via audio feed, online summary and slideshow.  This collection of photographs is voluminous and high quality enough to merit a two-pronged evening-to-day-sale structure (which is extremely rare in the photography category): The 1,200-plus lot auction will begin at Sotheby’s tomorrow at 5 p.m. and continue in a 10 a.m. session on Tuesday.

Despite judicial sanctification of the sale, its imminent dispersal of a museum-quality collection is still very controversial, especially among the artists whose works comprise the collection.  John Reuter, a photographer with many pieces in the collection, albeit none that will be included in the approaching Sotheby’s sessions, laments the sale, and its circumstances in NPR’s story:

“Having been through the dissolution of the company,” he says, “not only is my work in the collection and I can’t get it, and a lot of it was my best work, at certain periods of my life, but I also saw people who were incredible people who made this film and made Polaroid a great company, lose their jobs for no good reason really. So the auction is almost the funeral in a way, because it is the last act in the dissolution of Polaroid.”

What’s A Picture Worth? Polaroid Auctions Photos (NPR)

Beatles Bounty

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A single sheet of lyrics penned by John Lennon sold for $1.2 million at Sotheby’s New York on Friday. Although the lot, a handwritten sheet of paper containing the lyrics to “A Day In The Life”  nearly doubled its high estimate, the price was only a record if considered in pounds, as The Telegraph explains:

The most amount ever paid for Beatles lyrics at auction was $1.25 million in 2005 for ‘All You Need Is Love’. ‘A Day In the Life’ however has set a record in sterling due to the fluctuating exchange rate (‘All You Need Is Love sold for £690,000).

John Lennon’s ‘A Day in the Life’ fetches $1.2 million (Telegraph)

On the Lam

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With only 5 lots carrying mid-estimates of $1 million or more, the Latin American sales this week aren’t going to be hotbed of record-breaking activity. There is, however, potential for at least one major upset: This week’s most highly estimated Latin American art work is Wifredo Lam’s Sur les Traces (est. $1,200,000-$1,800,000), which is offered at Sotheby’s on Thursday.

Since it was exhibited for the first time at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in 1945, the black and white composition has made its rounds among other members of the trade and comes to us now from a private collection in Aspen. If Sur Les Traces sells within its estimate, it will likely establish a new record for Lam. The Cuban artist’s existing auction high of $1,322,500, is now over a decade old—in part because large-scale Lam paintings like Sur les Traces rarely appear at auction.

So Sur les Traces has rarity going for it, but does it have any other attributes that suggest it will best Lam’s existing record? To find out what Sur les Traces has in common with other top-dollar Lams and for more on Lam’s market in general, see

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More Than Just Mexico

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[intro]Mexican Artists Hold the Record Prices in Latin American Art[/intro]

In 2008, Rufino Tamayo’s Trovador established the auction record for the most expensive Latin American painting ever sold when it brought $7.2 million at Christie’s. Before that, Frida Kahlo’s $5.6 million Roots held the title which it, in turn, had inherited from another Kahlo that sold for $5.1  million in 2000. As these top prices suggest, Latin American art auctions have typically had Mexican artists to thank for their brightest moments. In fact, Mexican art is the foundation on which the Latin American auction category was built (the first sale of Latin American art that Mary-Anne Martin organized at Sotheby’s in 1977 was for Mexican paintings).

Today, however, the sector is more diverse than ever, featuring work by artists from more than 25 nations. Although work by Mexican artists still accounts for the majority of the value sold in the Latin American sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s (36% to be exact), art from other nations (especially Chile and Venezuela) are making large leaps in value, and the most highly estimated lot hitting the block in this week’s sales is by the Cuban artist Wifredo Lam.

For more on the value of Latin American artists and details on their markets,

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