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Phillips 10th Anniversary Editions Sale Features Robert Indiana Set

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Robert Indiana, NUMBERS ONE through ZERO, 1978-2003 ($700k – $1m)

Phillips is holding its 10th Anniversary Editions sale on April 24th and celebrating the growth of the prints and multiples market with a 400-lot sale populated by names like Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Brice Marden, Peter Doig, David Hockney, Jackson Pollock, Sam Gilliam, Keith Haring, Joseph Beuys, and Vija Celmins.

According to Phillips, “the Editions team was founded at Phillips in 2008 by Cary Leibowitz and Kelly Troester, who both remain at the helm today.”

“In the past decade, we have seen tremendous growth in the market for prints and multiples,” said Cary Leibowitz and Kelly Troester, Worldwide Co-Heads of Editions. “Phillips has prided itself on offering fine art original editions, which are many times the direct result of collaboration between artists and their printmakers, to both aspiring collectors and connoisseurs of 20th Century and Contemporary Art. Our 10-year anniversary auction continues this tradition, offering over 400 lots that span nearly 90 years of this important collecting category.”

  • a wide selection of more than 15 examples of Pablo Picasso’s masterful work in ceramic earthenware from the famous Madoura pottery studio in Vallauris, France. This group of Picasso’s ceramic works is crowned by 1953’s massive and monumental Gros oiseau corrida (Large Corrida Bird), an edition of only 25 that towers above 30 inches tall ($80-120k).
  • Visage larvé (Hidden Face), 1956-57 ($60-80k) is a rare example of Picasso’s work in sterling silver, which was inspired by the artist’s remark to the legendary art historian Douglas Cooper about how thrilling it would be to see his ceramic works rendered in the precious metal.
  • a complete set of Robert Indiana’s NUMBERS ONE through ZERO , 1978-2003 ($700k-1m). In a small edition of 8, this work is among the most coveted sculptural multiples, with each piece in this version standing 18 inches tall.
  • From 1965’s iconic 11 Pop Artists Volume II portfolio, Reverie, 1965, ($60-90k) by Roy Lichtenstein  is one of the finest trophies of Post-War printmaking
  • Lichtenstein’s Reflections on Crash, 1996, Tel Aviv Museum Print, 1989 ($100-150k)
  • Lichtenstein’s Sunshine Through the Clouds, 1985, amongst a number of others.
  • Andy Warhol’s Marilyn of 1967 ($70-100k)
  • Helen Frankenthaler’s Tale of Genji III, 1998, ($40-60k) is the artist’s late-period, printmaking masterpiece — in which she made use of over 18 woodcut blocks and 53 colors — that recalls her most renowned paintings on canvas.
  • The auction will also include works by Niki de Saint Phalle, Kara Walker, Jo Baer, Louise Bourgeois, Elizabeth Peyton, Susan Rothenberg and Cindy Sherman.
  • a collection of works by Brice Marden. Brice Marden began printmaking in the early 1960s and has been a force upon the medium ever since. Phillips is delighted to offer over 20 lots from the artist, including both individual works and large sets, which span across four decades of Marden’s long and introspective career. Dating from his time as a student at Yale, to sailing trips through the Greek Isles during the 1970s, and finally to more recent times with his study of Eastern calligraphy, these works trace the artist’s development into a contemporary master. Etchings to Rexroth, 1986, ($70-100k) a prolific portfolio of etchings, illustrates some of Brice Marden’s most profound artistic triumphs and provides a rare and comprehensive look at its artist’s pensive, inner landscape. In the exhibition leading up to the sale, Marden’s works will be exhibited alongside the work of Josef Albers ($40-60k), presenting an interesting dichotomy, as it was Albers’ influential color theory that Brice Marden rebelled against.
  • Peter Doig’s painterly set of twelve etchings from 2013 ($80-120k) encapsulates many of the various developments seen across the artist’s fruitful career.
  • David Hockney’s Moving Focus ($30-50k) image similarly deploys tropes that anchored the British artist’s decades-long art making. Reminiscent of Hockney’s early portraits, Walking Past Two Chairs, 1984-86 combines the informality of his Friends series together with the studies of perspective and landscape that are hallmark of his later career.

Deborah Ripley to be Director of Bonhams Print & Multiple Dept

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Bonhams announces that Deborah Ripley will lead their Prints and Multiples department:

Based in New York, Deborah will work with her team which includes Judith Eurich in San Francisco, Morisa Rosenberg in Los Angeles, and Shawna Brickley in New York.

With over 30 years experience, Deborah Ripley is a nationally recognized print expert. She has written and lectured about print collecting for numerous publications, including Forbes online, Print Collector’s Newsletter, Artnet Magazine, and Art on Paper. She has conducted classes in print appraisals for the New School in New York City, and is a frequent lecturer on various topics related to contemporary art. Starting at Pace Prints in the 1980’s, she later worked in the Print Department at Christie’s and then as the Director of Landfall Press in New York.

Print Sales Rise as Aggregators Spread Buyers Across Auction Venues

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Scott Reyburn’s New York Times column focuses on the online market keying off Hiscox’s recent report. But there may be something else going on here that’s a product of increased online access but not necessarily a measure of it. That is, there seems to be a surge taking place in the print and multiple market.

Picasso’s ceramics are everywhere and selling out everywhere they sell. The growth of low-margin feeder services like Invaluable, eBay and Artsy seems to be contributing to access and exposure. Sotheby’s and Phillips saw strong print sales last month but not a dramatic rise in overall volume beyond the previous range of sale totals.

Here’s Reyburn on the phenomena:Continue Reading

Sotheby’s Prints & Multiples = $10.8m

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Sotheby’s Prints & Multiples sale was dominated by Warhol, Picasso and Japser Johns with the top ten lots either works or portfolios of the three artists. Given the torpor in the Warhol market, the prints show the durability of the artists images. But the trend has some worrying indications that the overall art market remains too concentrated in a few “investible” names. The sale totaled $10.8m with 84% of the lots sold.

  • The top lot of the sale was Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn) (F. & S. II.23-31) from the collection of Margot Hahn, which fetched $1,092,500.
  • a rare complete portfolio of 0-9 (ULAE 19) by Jasper Johns from the Collection of Robert & Jane Rosenblum achieved a record price for a suite of lithographs by the artist. Chased by two bidders on the telephone and one in the room, the 1960-1963 lithographs from early in his career – of which four were specially replaced by Johns when they were stolen from the Rosenblum’s home – sold for a final price of $972,500, in excess of their $800,000 high estimate.
  • Nearly 60 lots of ceramics by Pablo Picasso, with over 50 lots from the Estate of Wagner Tielens, were 94.8% sold by lot, the group achieved a total of $1.7 million, in line with its high estimate.
  • The top Picasso ceramic was Grand Vase aux Femmes Voilées (A.R. 116), a large terre de faïence vase measuring 26 inches that sold for $444,500.

Money Changes Everything

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Frederick MoulderFrederick Moulder is a print dealer that the Evening Standard’s This Is London blog claims gave away his commission on the sale of a £3 million Picasso print. In addition, Mr. Moulder is cited as donating works to clients on the condition that they donate the same amount to charity in turn.

“I have a nice house which I bought 30 years ago and a 15-year-old VW Golf, which does me fine. I am able to use what money I earn to make some of the changes in the world I want to see.”

Money isn’t everything, says art dealer who gave $3m sale profit to charity (This Is London)

Print the Legend

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Deborah Ripley reports on the prints action at Art Basel Miami:

The main event of Miami art week is, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach at the Miami Beach Convention Center, Dec. 4-7, 2008. Among the handful of print dealers still exhibiting at the fair was Carolina Nitsch, who admitted she was worried about the art market. By Saturday, she was relieved to report that sales were very good. “Strong work will always stand out,” she declared, after selling Bruce Nauman’s Double Poke, a neon sculpture originally issued as a multiple to benefit the New Museum, for an impressive $250,000. She also sold a large etching by Richard Dupont for $4,500, and a suite of Carolee Schneemann’s challenging performance photos from the 1970s, which famously show the naked artist pulling various objects from her vagina. The buyer of this last was a museum.

The booth of Two Palms Press was crowded with viewers anxious to get a gander at Richard Prince’s new naughty portfolio of 19 print collages, entitled “Dead or Alive” and debuting at $200,000 for an edition of six. Prince’s mélange of images of de Kooning’s “Women,” clipped from museum catalogues and grafted onto pulp-magazine pinups, enables viewers, according to the press release, to finally experience “unrepressed de Kooning.” Thanks to the stiff price, sales were repressed as well — at least so far.

Miami Print Report 2008 (Artnet)

Prints Pressed Down

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Artnet Reports on the Print Market

Deborah Ripley has this smart, detailed report on the recent print sales in New York:

The final tallies from both houses showed that this new market has shifted radically from previous years: Christie’s sale on Oct. 28-29, 2008, totaled $8,165,663, roughly 62 percent of the value of all the lots in the sale, and a sell-through rate of 61 percent. Sotheby’s did a little worse on Oct 30-31, 2008, totaling $8,325,317, about 52 percent of the value of its sale, and a sell-through rate of 58 percent.

Overall, many works saw price corrections, especially those by artists whose prints had seen stupendous increases in value over the past few years. The biggest loser was Andy Warhol, whose decline was confirmation of a trend that Pop dealers had noticed over the past year. Warhol prices dropped at least 30 percent overall, and in some cases more.

But don’t cry for Andy, there’s still life left in his massive market:

The good news is that Sotheby’s sold one of Warhol’s “Marilyn” portfolios of ten multicolored silkscreens for just over $1 million ($1,022,500). This is the third highest price ever achieved for a Warhol price at auction, proving that “Marilyn” is still a big draw for collectors.

Ripley gives a detailed tour of the world of prints that’s well worth reading in depth. But the conclusion is summed up here:

Phillips contemporary print chief Cary Leibowitz predicted that the day of the phone-book-sized catalogue has passed. “Right now there are too many works, and not enough bidders,” he said. “Next season’s offerings will be substantially smaller.”

The New Print Paradigm (Artnet)

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