Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

Manet to Middle Eastern Museum?

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The Economist usually has good coverage of the art market. This week’s report on the Impressionist and Modern sales in London identifies the buyer of the Manet self portrait as a Middle Eastern museum.

Unfortunately, the rest of the report contains some errors that sap the magazine of any authority on the subject:

The Bond Street auctioneer drew a stellar crowd that included Laurence Graff, a British jeweller specialising in huge diamonds, and Larry Gagosian, an influential New York art dealer who rarely appears in person at auctions.“

Stooping, Not Conquering (The Economist)

Manet Makes Estimate

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Carol Vogel gives the rundown on last night’s “lackluster” Impressionist and Modern evening sale at Sotheby’s London. The $165.2 million sale did fall within its estimate of $148.4 million to $217.5 million, and the most highly anticipated lot, a self-portrait by Manet did achieve a new record for the artist ($33 million), but the tone of Vogel’s article indicates that the sale (and the Manet) failed to wow.

She notes that there was only bidder chasing the Manet and quotes dealer Richard Feigen who suggests that the Manet failed to go over estimate because it may be over the heads of many members of the art-buying public:

“The Manet put a damper on the evening,” said Richard L. Feigen, another New York dealer, adding that the painting was not well suited to being sold at auction. “It was a great picture, but he’s not an auction artist,” Mr. Feigen said; the work was too intellectual to have the commercial appeal of paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Giacometti and Modigliani that have brought record-breaking prices over the last few months.

A Lackluster Art Auction in London (The New York Times)

Manet and the Founding of Today's Art Market

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The Times of London makes this interesting connection between the record-setting London sales announced last week and the beginnings of the modern art market as described in Philip Hook’s book:

According to The Ultimate Trophy, a recent book on the auction world, the Modern Art market was born at Sotheby’s in London on October 15, 1958. In a single sale consisting of only seven paintings and conducted in front of celebrities such as Kirk Douglas, Somerset Maugham and Dame Margot Fonteyn, the world record price for a work of art was broken four times.The first lot under the hammer that night, Manet’s stern Self-Portrait with a Palette, is now up for auction again in this month’s Sotheby’s sale, estimated at £20 million to 30 million.

Art shrugs off financial crisis as buyers prepare for richest sales yet (Times of London)

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