Will the art market need to discount its masterpieces?
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Sunday, November 10, 2024


Will the art market need to discount its masterpieces?
File photo of phone bidding during the auction of the collection of S.I. Newhouse at Christie’s in New York, on Thursday, May 11, 2023. (Hiriko Masuike/The New York Times)

by Zachary Small



NEW YORK, NY.- Major auction houses are hedging their bets in the fall season of sales that begins Monday, offering fat guarantees to sellers to secure their works — and pricing some of their top items more conservatively after the spring season demonstrated weakness in the blazing-hot $60 billion art market. And now, sellers are trying to anticipate how the uncertainty of a new war in the Middle East will affect them.

Auctioneers at the three rival companies — Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips — have been digging deeper into private collections for one-off paintings that might spice up their modern and contemporary art sales, given the thinning availability of estates to draw from (typically driven by deaths and divorces).

“We have built the sale in a very old-school way,” said Alex Rotter, chair of Christie’s departments overseeing 20th- and 21st-century art, who said his team shopped around individual collectors to acquire works by Joan Mitchell ($25 million to $35 million), Claude Monet ($65 million) and Francis Bacon ($50 million). “We went for paintings that would create the most buzz.”

However, the company lost one of the season’s biggest bounties to rivals at Sotheby’s, which is presenting 31 artworks from the estate of Emily Fisher Landau, a philanthropist who died this year, on Wednesday evening (there is also a day sale). That collection is estimated at more than $400 million and carries a Sotheby’s house guarantee — a minimum price guaranteed to the family.

It contains one of the most expensive Pablo Picasso paintings to reach the market, carrying an estimate over $120 million: “Femme a la montre,” a portrait from 1932 of the artist’s mistress, the young Marie-Thérèse Walter. (The current auction high for a Picasso painting, set in 2015, is $179.3 million.) Other lots include a 1958 Mark Rothko painting that was completed in preparation for his famous commission at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building and a 1964 Ed Ruscha painting whose appearance at auction coincides with a lauded exhibition on the artist at the Museum of Modern Art. Both artworks carry estimates that hover above $30 million.

“We have to go out there and get our supply,” said Brooke Lampley, Sotheby’s chair and worldwide head of global fine art sales. “Season to season, people are evermore interested in what the big collection of the season will be.”

Sotheby’s and Christie’s expect that the November auction season could bring their companies upward of $1 billion each. But despite the claims of some auctioneers who said there are masterpieces around every corner, art advisers and market experts have noted the broader market’s lack of stellar inventory and buyer focus.

“We are experiencing a recalibration in the market after the comeback that we saw in 2021 reached its peak last fall,” said Drew Watson, head of art services for Bank of America’s private bank, who was referring to the $1.5 billion sale of artworks collected by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. “We were already seeing signs of the market softening at this time a year ago, if you looked at day and evening sales. There was less depth of bidding.”

During the spring auction season last May, three paintings by Jasper Johns offered at Christie’s failed to reach their low estimate. Paintings by other artists were withdrawn before the auctions started, signaling a lack of confidence in the market or inflated prices. Celebrity auctions have helped attract crowds in the meantime, with consignments from Barbara Walters and Freddie Mercury drawing collectors willing to spend thousands of dollars on mementos.

Watson said there was a noticeable uptick in guarantees from auction houses and third parties, which provide consignors with a confirmed minimum sales price.

“It has become an increasingly important tool for auction houses to coax high-value properties into the market,” Watson said. “For buyers, it is also an important signal of confidence. It gives potential bidders something to bid against. And it only takes two bidders to create an auction.”

Robert Manley, deputy chair at Phillips, said his auction house has guaranteed the 30 artworks from the Triton Collection Foundation in the Netherlands, which includes pieces by Fernand Léger and Picasso. The entire collection, to be auctioned Nov. 14, has a high estimate of $100 million.

In another noticeable downshift, Manley said rampant speculation in the ultracontemporary market for young artists born since 1975 — many without a museum provenance — had decreased.

“I hate to use the word sanity, but people are more measured,” he said. “It is still not unusual for young artists to rocket up to $200,000 or $300,000. But over the last few years, artists were quickly going to $800,000 and $1 million.”

What is behind this more cautious market? Magnus Resch, an art market economist, said higher interest rates and the global uncertainty of two major wars, in Europe and the Middle East, could dampen next week’s sales.

“People are just less active in times like these,” Resch said. “There is a large group of buyers who have Israeli connections. It is understandable that buying luxury items is not on their minds right now.”

For major collections, auction houses often set their estimates about six months in advance, although regular evening sales have more flexibility; nowadays, they are finalized a few weeks before the sale. But the economic volatility of global conflicts might widen the gap between expectations and reality, some auctioneers fear.

“I am not painting you an elephant in every corner,” said Rotter. “To say anything that happened this year will have no impact would be irresponsible.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

November 5, 2023

An apparent cyberattack hushes the British Library

Will the art market need to discount its masterpieces?

Morphy's Nov. 15-16 Advertising auction includes 1925 German carousel, 2 huge railroadiana collections

A 500-year-old Inca mummy in Peru now has a face

Tate Edit x Guerrilla Girls

Prada stores in Shanghai and Tokyo open two exhibitions curated by Nicholas Cullinan

Exceptional performance of Cyriax Collection, surpassing high estimates at Stanley Gibbons

New photo book: Salt of the Earth: A Visual Odyssey of a Transforming Landscape by Barbara Boissevain

Bonhams achieves more than £7 million for London Asian Art sales

Garrett Bradley wins Eye Art & Film Prize 2023

Jane Jin Kaisen announced as the winner of the Beckett Prize 2023

"The Outwin: American Portraiture Today" opens at the Ackland Art Museum

Lone gem-mint Luke Skywalker sticker from Topps' 1977 'Star Wars' series expected to sell for more than $100,000

At Paul Taylor, the music calls for a dance. The men respond.

Rare American colonial manuscript collection goes to auction

Several notable collections come together during fall auction to highlight major moments in early American numismatics

Tate Britain to host edible artwork by Bobby Baker

What the suburbs did for Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen

Bierstadt, N.C. Wyeth, Tooker and Parrish lead Heritage's American Art auction

'Pal Joey' review: Bewitched, bothered and bewildering

'I'm Still Alive': Sean Young takes the stage in 'Ode to the Wasp Woman'

SJ Auctioneers announces online only Happy Hour of Fine Collectibles auction

'Sabbath's Theater' review: John Turturro embodies a life and a libido

The Importance of Insurance

5 Simple Tips to Improve Air Quality At Home




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful