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The Top of the Impressionist & Modern Market, 2007-18

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This analysis of the 12 years of Impressionist & Modern Art Evening sales at Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips was made possible with data from our friends at Pi-eX. It is available to AMMpro subscribers. Subscriptions begin with a free month for the curious. (Please note: these numbers do not include single-owner and curated sales that have punctuated the market at various times. The point of these charts is to show year-over-year changes and so the single-owner and curated sales are thought to interfere with a consistent comparison.)

There is something going on at the top of the art market. As we've seen from our recent posts on the last dozen years in sales information, there is an overall trend over the last three years toward fewer transactions in the Evening sales. This trend is most pronounced and visible in the Impressionist and Modern art field.

In previous posts, we've talked about there being three phases to the recent art market: the pre-financial crisis boom, the post-crisis recovery and then the post-2016 correction. In this post-2016 period, especially in the Impressionist and Modern market, the number of works coming to market and transacting has fallen. This fall is significant but not necessarily the cataclysmic event that many feared would damage the Impressionist and Modern market. Indeed, fewer objects transacting is a sign of the market's health as the value of the works sold in the same period has risen to levels above the previous period of 2009-2015.

Obviously, fewer objects adding up to higher sales volume is a sign that the top of the market is getting more selective and more valuable. Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips are contributing to this process by emphasizing the sale of fewer works and looking for the ones that can attract the most value. 

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Sotheby’s Trawls for £6m with Schiele’s Fishing Boat in London

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Sotheby’s is touring an Egon Schiele painting of a fishing boat through Asia at the moment before they bring it back to sell in London on February 26th in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale. It will be offered with an estimate of £6 – 8 million. The sale follows Schiele’s centenary year and a series of celebratory exhibitions all across Europe. These have coincided with some strong recent prices for Schiele, especially at Sotheby’s which sold his 1913 cityscape for $24.6 million in NY in November – the second highest price for the artist. That interest was echoed in the wider interest in German and Austrian art in the same sale (which saw records for Oskar Kokoschka and Ludwig Meidner, and an exceptional price for an oil by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.)

A square-format depiction of a fishing boat in Trieste painted in the pivotal year of 1912, it has never before been at auction, having remained in a private collection since 1962. Its first owner was the patron Heinrich Böhler, Schiele’s pupil who supplied the artist with paint, canvas and models. Böhler worked side by side with his teacher. He also became a dedicated collector of his work.

The painting is notable for its composition, sitting alongside Schiele’s townscapes with its flattened, closely-cropped perspective and bold colour. The painting holds a unique position in Schiele’s oeuvre. Schiele was imprisoned earlier that year. Outcast and shaken, he returned to Trieste where he could relive memories of earlier visits shared with his sister Gerti in 1907 and 1908. Here’s Sotheby’s release on the art work:Continue Reading

The November Impressionist & Modern Sales 2007-18

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This detailed analysis of the November Impressionist and Modern Evening sales over the last 12 years was provided by our friends at Pi-eX. It is available to AMMpro subscribers. Subscriptions begin with a free month for the curious.

The November Impressionist and Modern sales seemed to leave many disappointed. It was true that many lots struggled against seller's expectations. But the total for the sales was among the best over the last dozen years. Looking at these charts provided by Pi-eX, you can see the that this year's hammer totals were in the same range as those of 2014 (though remember that we're comparing like sales and excluding some of the curated and single-owner collections.) Only 2007 and 2017 have exceeded the totals of this year.

This year was also among the sales where works over $10m accounted for the greatest proportion of the sale total but still behind 2017, 2007 and 2014.

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Sotheby’s Unveils $30m Marsden Hartley Berlin Abstract

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Six years ago, MoMA mounted its striking and unconventional show “Inventing Abstraction: 1910-1925” which opened with the unconventional choice of four works by Marsden Hartley from his Berlin series. The whole of the series was assembled two years later at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin for a show that Roberta Smith described as confirming Hartley’s world-class status:

Before Jasper Johns or Jackson Pollock, there was Marsden Hartley, America’s first great modern painter of the 20th century. He achieved this distinction in Paris and most of all in Berlin between early 1912 and late 1915. There he produced a stream of paintings that synthesized Cubism and other European modernisms, mixed in non-Western motifs and mysterious symbols and culminated in his lusty, elegiac German Officer paintings

One of the missed opportunities of this season’s estates was the Berlin, No. 49 painting owned by Barney Ebsworth that was donated to the Seattle Art Museum as consolation for the estate’s decision to sell Ebsworth’s legendary American art collection. Any collector gnashing their teeth at missing out on one of the rare Berlin works still in private hands will rejoice this morning to learn that Sotheby’s has Ed and Deborah Shein’s Pre-War Pageant (1913-15) which was shown at Washington, DC’s National Gallery in 2010. There’s talk of one of these works trading on the private market for $20m or more. That might explain the $30m estimate. The rarity of the work, with Ebsworth’s example going to a museum precious few are left in private hands, also commands such a strong price. Here’s Sotheby’s release on the work which will sell in New York on November 12th:Continue Reading

Looking for Signs in Sotheby’s £87.5m London Imp-Mod Evening Sale

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(Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images for Sotheby’s)

Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Evening sale in London came in under expectations last night with £87.5m in sales where both top lots, a Picasso portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter from 1932 and Giacometti’s cat previously owned by the Brody family in Los Angeles, sold for prices that fit with the tone of recent sales in the category.

The sale was down about a third over the previous year’s event with the very top lots accounting for much of the shrinkage, although in this year’s outing there was a good £20m in lost sales volume due to buyers just not showing up.

The Impressionist and Modern market remains both selective and top-heavy but last night’s sale also seemed to fit into some recent themes where the very top works failed to spark interest. As with the New York cycle of sales, bidders focused on particular works that were not necessarily the most highly valued.

The Picasso sold for £27m ($36m) which is a price in line with recent sales of similar works from the same year like the smaller but more striking Le Repos which Sotheby’s sold for a similar price in May. Although Phillips generated a much higher price ~$57m for another 1932 work just a few months before in London, it is not an uncommon pattern to see very strong prices followed by a declension as successive sales satisfy existing demand rather than generating new buyer interest.Continue Reading

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