Contemporary Art Brunch Buzz
“Prices of all assets have fallen—stocks, gold, oil, real estate—and it would be unrealistic to expect works of art to be immune to the market’s pressures,” said Marc Porter, president of Christie’s in America. “We are actively encouraging consignors to set reasonable reserves.”
Sunday morning, I went with a few friends to check out the art and the mood at Sotheby’s as well as Christie’s auction house. It was a sunny day and the best place to sip a Mimosa while observing dealers, collectors, and hear the public buzz.
According to the New York Times, “millions of dollars of art went unsold at those September and October sales, with many works going for well below their estimates. Since then auction house officials have been busy trying to get sellers to lower their expectations.”
Much of the art up for auction this week and next, was secured early in the summer, when the world seemed a far different place. Now, with the net worth of so many buyers plummeting, auction houses have been trying to persuade sellers to lower their reserves, that is, the undisclosed minimum price that a bidder must meet for the art to be sold.
At Christie’s the argument is that the objects they desire “might not reappear on the market next season at an even lower price.”
The major sellers this season are hardly novices: they include savvy collectors like the financier Henry Kravis and his wife, Marie-Josée Kravis, president of the Museum of Modern Art, who are selling Degas’s “Dancer in Repose.” Other sellers include Jennifer Stockman, president of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation;
and Kathy Fuld, another MoMA trustee and the wife of Richard S. Fuld, Jr., the troubled former chief executive of the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers. All of these collectors have been given generous guarantees that some admitted were hard to refuse.
Walking around the large rooms at Sotheby’s several discussions are the people topics…
One big question is who will be buying this expensive art. With hedge-fund traders, Russian oligarchs and wealthy Middle Easterners having taken a hit in the financial markets, the auction houses, whistling in the dark, are hoping for a return of old money.
“Americans who fled when prices began soaring will jump back into the market but at a different price level,” said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art. Among the standouts in the fall lineup at Sotheby’s are paintings like Edvard Munch’s “Vampire” (1894), priced to bring more than $35 million, and an Yves Klein wall relief estimated at more than $25 million.
Christie’s is offering a 1934 portrait of Picasso’s mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter estimated at $18 million to $25 million and a Basquiat painting at $12 million and $16 million. “I still hold the belief that the great works will find buyers,” said Guy Bennett, of Christie’s. But at what price remains to be seen.
Prices for less-than-stellar Warhols have been softening recently, so this fall’s auctions will test the Pop master’s staying power.
Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s are selling Warhols of all dates and subjects, including “Set of Four Boxes: Brillo Soap Pads; Campbell’s Tomato Juice; Del Monte Peach Halves; Heinz Tomato Ketchup” at Sotheby’s.
The sculpture is composed of four wood boxes, each from the 1960s, that are silk-screened to look like products and belong to Jane Holzer, the New York socialite who was known as Baby Jane Holzer when she was a regular in Warhol’s entourage in the 1960s. It carries an estimate of $2.5 million to $3.5 million.
At Christie’s, Aaron Fleischman, a Washington lawyer and collector, is parting with an example of one of the artist’s Mao portraits. The small 1973 canvas, measuring about 26 by 22 inches, is priced to sell for $4.5 million to $6.5 million. In November of 2006, a far larger Mao, measuring 82 by 61 inches, sold for $17.3 million to Joseph Lau, a Hong Kong collector. In those halcyon days, Warhol’s Mao images appealed to any number of Asian collectors. The question of who will step up and bid this season is another matter.
Early last summer a New York collector negotiated a hefty guarantee from Christie’s in consigning his 1964 “Study for Self-Portrait” by Francis Bacon for the fall auctions. In the months it took to hammer out details of the contract, economic turmoil grew so worrisome that Christie’s got cold feet and withdrew the guarantee.
The auction house persuaded the seller to offer the Bacon anyway, and it is one of the highlights of Christie’s Nov. 12 sale. Experts say that the full-length portrait, in which the artist is shown sitting on a bed, his body twisted from head to toe, should sell for around $40 million.
Christie’s is obviously hoping to capitalize on the record prices paid for Bacon’s works recently. A 1976 Bacon triptych went for $86.3 million in May at Sotheby’s in New York, and a 1975 self-portrait brought $34.4 million at Christie’s in London in June. Those were among the highest prices ever paid for the British artist, who is the subject of a current exhibition at the Tate in London that travels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in May.
Still, there is no getting around the fact that “the market has changed,” said Brett Gorvy, co-head of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art department. Why are these two 1964 sculptures by John Chamberlain, roughly the same size and made the same year, priced so differently?
Christie’s estimates that “Spike,” from the estate of the philanthropist Alice Lawrence, the widow of the Manhattan real estate developer Sylvan Lawrence, will bring $900,000 to $1.2 million. “Ca-D’Oro,” which is being sold by an unidentified Midwestern collector at Sotheby’s, carries an estimate of $1.8 million to $2.2 million.
Both of these colorful crushed metal sculptures are from the artist’s prime period, when he used everyday objects, like abandoned car parts. He often sprayed as many as 100 coats of lacquer on the steel to achieve the surface he desired.
Estate property is generally more reasonably priced, and Christie’s has given the Lawrence heirs a guarantee. That means the auction house rather than the estate can set the prices. The one at Sotheby’s seems to have been estimated at the whim of an auction house expert—or possibly a hungry seller.
A hint of schadenfreude might have been in the air when gossip-mongers delightedly spread the news that the Museum of Modern Art trustee Kathy Fuld and her husband, Richard S. Fuld Jr., the former chief executive of Lehman Brothers, would be selling 16 postwar works on paper at Christie’s on Nov. 12. Still, their offerings could well be among the biggest draws of the sale, potentially attracting old-time collectors who bowed out of the market when it became overheated.
Far lower in price than paintings by these modern masters, they are seminal images of the highest quality that only occasionally come to market.
Mrs. Fuld, who began collecting works on paper in the mid-1980s, is parting with rare examples of drawings by Barnett Newman, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning and Agnes Martin. Among the best in the group are three from de Kooning’s “Woman” series, including a 1951 example of a Cubist figure. Another is Gorky’s “Study for Agony I,” a graphite, crayon and ink wash on paper executed in 1946-47, related to a painting from the same year that is in MoMA’s collection. Mrs. Fuld bought her drawing at Christie’s in 1996 for $370,000. It is now estimated to bring $2.2 million to $2.8 million.
Christie’s officials are so confident about the drawings, which are expected to bring $15 million to $20 million in all, that it gave Mrs. Fuld a guarantee that is said to be about $20 million.
Joelle’s Tips:
Source: New York Times TOO MANY WARHOLS?; Auction Houses Brace for Fall / Karol Vogel
Related Articles:
Contemporary-Art Sale Disappoints at Christie’s
Art Imitates Life for Lehman CEO
Art market in shock as Christie’s calls halt to Francis Bacon sale
Check the New York auctions results: November 11/ 12/13/ 2008
Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Day Sale : Total: 35,808,600 USD
Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale : Total: 125,131,500 USD
