| In This Issue |
| Cleveland Museum of Art |
| Sotheby’s Looking Closely |
The top lot of the evening was the Bacon, yes the triptych entitled “Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud” that had been offered privately by Gagosian and Haunch of Vension for a modest £15M, but at auction it made a cool £23M.
It seems like every journalist, even those that do not normally write on the art market, wants to understand the dynamics. But sheer numbers and percentage changes year to year do not explain the market. In order to understand the fluctuations in auction results and individual artist’s pricing you also have to understand the art.
| Congratulations to Jasper Johns |
highest civilian honors by being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is the first living artist to receive the honor in quite some time. Johns is truly an American icon. | February, 2011 |
Dear Friends,
Winter is almost over. Despite the beautiful views of snowy Central Park from our offices, we are happy to be done with the snow. London’s weather was dreary but the auctions were awesome. We hope to see everyone in the coming New York art season.
This has also been a time of extreme international distress. Sotheby’s auction had its first ever serious disruption (more on that below), which was part of the endemic uprising against money and power throughout the world, especially in the Arab nations (Egypt and Tunisia). While there is enough tragedy to go around, the looting of Egyptian museums is causing serious losses to the history of civilization. This may cause increased instability in the global marketplace and higher inflation.
Any change in inflation will make art a safer place to park money. Prices in the art market will continue to rise as a tangible security. The rarity of Impressionist and Modern Art and the importance of blue chip Contemporary art will only cause prices to rise.
Long live art!
Very truly yours,
David Benrimon
From our viewpoint the only problem with the painting was overexposure on the secondary market in advance of the auction. It is a museum quality piece and Titian’s of this quality with verified authenticity are extremely rare.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art landed itself a beautiful painting by Perino del Vaga “The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist” for $2.1M, despite an estimate of $300k-$400k.
In total the sales sold 74% by lot and 86% by volume. There was a huge difference in the quality of works when comparing Christie’s to Sotheby’s and that resulted in an enormous discrepancy of results. Sotheby’s totaled over $182M (£113M) while Christie’s barely netted just under $60M (£37M).
modest. The best works to come out of the Christie’s auction were the 4 works being deaccessioned by the Art Institute of Chicago. That provenance label proved to be very enticing, with the works achieving $16M (£10M), including a magnificent Braque from 1938 which received $6.4M (£4M). In total Christie’s received $137M (£95M) that night, including nearly $37M(£23M) in the Surrealist sale.But the star of the Modern and Impressionism sale at Sotheby’s was the Picasso “La Lecture”. A painting of Ms. Marie-Therese, a Picasso mistress of just 17, when she met a middle aged Picasso of 45. It is believed that this is the first portrait painting of Ms. Marie-Therese.
Sotheby’s Contemporary Art evening sale had a 10% buy-in rate by lots and collected more than $71M (£44M). For those keeping score at home, 54 out of 59 lots sold and fully 23 lots sold for over $1M. The big news at the evening auction was the protests in the back of the auction room during the Warhol lot: “Nine Multicolored Marilyns (Reversal Series)”. 
The protests seemed to be everything and nothing at the same time. The protestors held signs that read “Orgy of the Rich” and threw fake £50 bank notes into the air. While one would think it was about the cuts in art funding in Britain it was also about the general decline in social services and hospitals and mainly the growing gap in economic inequality. It is a humorous video and probably reflects a global consciousness.
The auctions also included major works by many of the household name
d artists like Koons, Richter, Warhol, Fontana, Hockney, and Basquiat but also brought high sums for lesser known contemporary artists like Franz Gertsch, Ged Quinn and Jenny Saville. We would have loved that Seville painting in our living room, but ultimately it was too expensive.. The Gertsch was unfortunately deaccessioned by the Stiftung Neus Museum Westerburg Bremen. Can any museum hold onto its artworks?
Christie’s evening auction was also very strong with an almost $100M (£61M) result (compared to a $58-$83M presale estimate), quite a considerable improvement from last year and 2009. Of the lots, a full 28 sold for over $1M (almost half of the 58 lots that sold) and 7 new artist records were set. The top lot of the evening was the Warhol self-portrait, despite various issues. In short, the work was unsigned and the condition could have been better. Larry Gagosian purchased the work for over $17.4M (£10.8M). Even with the flaws everyone knew the piece was going to beat its conservative estimate of £3-5M.
Both sales also reaffirmed that the Russians have arrived. Russian telephone bidding was hot and a lot of the winning bids over the phones went to Alina Davey, a Russian specialist at Sotheby’s and Sandra Nedvetskaia of Christie’s.
Phillips du Pury was last to go with its minimal 29 lots in the evening sale. The big winner was Dan Colen, whose work with a modest estimate of £20k brought in £85M. Philipps was not too proud to boast of Mr. Colen, opening its catalogue entry with this statement: “At just 31 years of age, Dan Colen is the current favourite of the contemporary art scene.” Only one work reached over £1M (a basquiat painting). An unexpected casualty of the evening was the Fontana canvas (use this image) at lot 4, which failed to find a buyer at £400K, despite recent high results Sotheby’s and Christie’s. As usual with Phillips most sales were below the low estimate, including commission. On the bright side Phillips brought in £5.4M with 24 out of 29 lots selling.
David Benrimon Fine Art
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