Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

How Does a Work Get Off the Wall?

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Michael Reid Podcast

Australian art dealer and former journalist Michael Reid has an interesting take on selling art today. It’s a bit of a wide-ranging conversation about Australian art and the art market there. But the perspective ought to be interesting to dealers and collectors alike. In this Creative Tension podcast with The Australian’s Michaela Boland, he is asked,

What is it that sells a work to a collector? Do they need to be confident of the value of it?

I think we’ve gone beyond selling, actually. I seriously believe we’ve got into a world now where the work has to connect to an individual. And if it connects, I facilitate the deal. But I don’t sell anything anymore. I don’t have to; and I don’t think I can…in really loose terms.

So how does a work get off the wall?

I broadcast it to an audience who come to me because they like what I do. 

How do you broadcast it?

Traditionally, like every other way starting from a phone to a letter to an email to Facebook to LinkedIn to Instagram to YouTube.

 

Menzies Looks to Buy in New York to Sell in Australia

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Leger, Chinatown (1943)

The Australian Financial Review has news of an interesting new strategy at Menzies, the Melbourne auctioneer. Acknowledging the torpid state of the Australian art market since the global financial crisis despite some boom times in Australia’s economy, AFR reports that Menzies will be looking to acquire works in New York that it hopes to arbitrage in Australia.

The first work is an abstract by Fernand Leger, Chinatown that Menzies has offered before and will offer again this month:Continue Reading

Sotheby’s Australia Comes Up Short with 42% Sell-Through

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Jeffrey Smart, The Hitch-Hiker (A$300-400k) A$366k

Sotheby’s Australia held a conservative sale last night but even pulling in their horns didn’t help. The Jeffrey Smith work above was the top seller at A$366k and one of the few works to sell within the estimate range:

A catalogue of 48 artworks with a combined pre-auction estimate of $5 million-$6.7m went under the hammer but only 42 per cent found buyers. The sale total of $1.97m included the 22 per cent buyer’s premium.

The auction at Sotheby’s Woollahra office in Sydney’s eastern suburbs attracted fewer than 60 people and most sat on their hands, leaving bidding to just a handful of game souls in the room and on phones.

Poor Sale at Sotheby’s Reflect Market Doldrums (The Australian)

Australian Retirement Rules Soften Aboriginal Art Market

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Australia’s new rules for art used as a retirement asset is causing ripple effects through the already weak Aboriginal art market. The retirement schemes are said to account for a large portion of Aboriginal art purchases over recent years. Now with strict rules against having the art on display and onerous storage costs, many are divesting including Melbourne dealers Bill Nuttall and Annette Reeves who will make $289,000 after selling three quarters of their 120-piece investment collection. Buyers will pay a total of $352,000:

Bonhams Aboriginal art specialist Greer Adams admitted “the higher end of the market is still a little tough at the moment”.

Ms Adams said most works went to private buyers but there was some bidding from institutions. More than six artist records were set, including a spectacular sale for a work shown in the 2007 Telstra Art Awards, Gurtha at Biranybirany by Rerrkirrwaa Munuygurr, which sold for $9000 (including the premium) off an estimate of $1500 to $2500. The stand-out result from the second part of the sale was Paddy Bedford’s Thoonbi, for $180,000 including the premium.

Indigenous Art Auction Falls Short (The Australian)

I Have Seen the Future & It Is Australia

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The Telegaph’s Richard Dorment is high on Australian art, artists the country’s art infrastructure:

I’ve just come back from a tour of Australia’s museum and art galleries, and as well as seeing talented artists whose work I hadn’t known before, I found an energy and optimism among the curators, collectors and dealers there that reminded me of London in the good old days.

With huge mineral resources, a strong dollar and economic ties to Asia, Australia has survived the economic downturn a lot better than we have. In fact, the place is booming. Since art always follows money, just you watch: contemporary art in Australia is going to be the next big thing.

One of the visible signs of the renaissance taking place down under is the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. In some ways Sydney’s MCA is Australia’s equivalent to Tate Modern, though London didn’t have a museum of modern art until 2000, whereas the MCA has been on its site in the historic centre of Sydney on the harbour on a stretch of water across from the Opera House since 1989.

Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney: can you guess where the next big thing will be? (Telegraph)

Australian Art Dealer’s Stock Sees Record Sales

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The Australian is keeping tabs on the sale at Mosgreen’s that has set a record for Australian painter Fred Williams:

A FINE Fred Williams landscape was sold for $1.25 million and 10 registered bidders resulted in an intricate Robert Klippel metal sculpture fetching $73,200, five times its estimate, at an auction in Sydney last night.

Both works were among the 590 items from the estate of Ann Lewis auctioned by Mossgreen at the Art Gallery of NSW last night, where attractive prices and a 1500-strong crowd saw bidding open at 6pm and set to continue until well after midnight.

Fred Williams landscape sells for $1.25m from the estate of Ann Lewis (The Australian)

Aussie High Net Worth Individuals Not Spending on Art … Yet

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The Wall Street Journal’s Scene Asia blog got excited about today’s auction of Aboriginal Art at Bonhams (turns out the optimism was premature–only four lots reached meaningful prices) because Australia’s High Net Worth population is sitting on a strong currency:

“Bonhams has taken the decision to really go for it and to move into the Australian market very, very actively,” said Mark Fraser, Bonhams chairman in Australia. “It’s a great time to be selling.”

The auction house says it has received approaches in recent weeks by at least three owners of museum-quality Australian paintings in London and New York who are considering selling because of the appreciation of the Aussie dollar.Continue Reading

Sotheby's Australia = $5.95m

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Australia’s auction season opened with Sotheby’s sale in Melbourne.

The 97-lot sale in Melbourne was standing-room only for the first hour and 71 per cent of works sold at a total of $4.95 million, $5.95m including premium — a result that pleased Sotheby’s new chairman, Geoffrey Smith.

“It was a good sale,” he said.

Most buyers appeared to be private collectors. High-profile art dealer Denis Savill attended, but for the first time in many years did not make a bid.

“It’s my protest against the resale royalty,” Mr Savill said.

Sotheby’s Art Buyers Chase the Rare and New (The Australian)

Art, Business & Life

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Australia’s John Kaldor has donated a substantial collection to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia. Collecting was more than a pastime for Kaldor, it was an integral part of his life and business:

Right from the start, working and collecting were entwined. He was not a banker dabbling on the side. Kaldor commissioned fabric designs and bought revolutionary international art with the same eye. “I don’t think I am that talented as a businessman,” he says in the considered Hungarian accent a few years at Riverview failed to beat out of him. “I think my strength was in design and also in colour.” […]

“As I was building my business, I didn’t buy real estate besides my home or invest in shares,” he says. “I put everything into art or art projects. I never collected because I thought it was a good investment. So in effect the collection is a big part of my assets.”

He bought energetically for 20 years through a dozen dealers in Europe and New York. “I sold when I got divorced. I sold a couple of pieces to help my children get their homes. But I never traded in art. I didn’t buy to trade and I never traded. There was a lot in storage. There were a number of works that were too big to get into my house.”

A Life’s Works (Sydney Morning Herald)

Goodman's Exit from Sotheby's Aus Explained

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The Australian Financial Review finally gives a reasonable explanation for the sudden exit of Tim Goodman from Sotheby’s Australia only a year after he abruptly switched his First East auction holding company from Bonhams Australia to Sotheby’s Australia by acquiring the license to use Sotheby’s name as the firm exited the Australian market:

Goodman told AFR last week that the mix of high debt, greater than anticipated costs, a bad year for the art auction market, and far tougher banking conditions had underpinned his decision to bring forward his three- to four-year exit strategy in favor of Geoffrey Smith — and get out of Sotheby’s now. “In view of the current market and the performance of the top end, First East’s debt levels were too high,” Goodman said. “And this gave me some discomfort. And the reason for this is the Sotheby’s acquisition was done mostly with debt rather than equity.”

Goodman also says that the strains with Bonhams (still a 9.2 per cent shareholder in the Goodman-controlled First East) complicated the situation.

“I didn’t recapitalise because there were obstacles in the First East shareholders agreement, particularly in relation to Bonhams stake,” he says.

In other words, Goodman got jammed up in the bottom of the auction market cycle with a cranky minority shareholder and–we’re guessing here–some equally fed up equity partners who all helped him decide it was a good time to retire.

(With thanks to TK for the tip)

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