London Impressionist, Contemporary and Modern Sales

Carol Vogel has a nice piece in the Art and Design section of the NY Times on the upcoming London impressionist,contemporary and modern art auctions. Vogel states upfront the markets are unsure, it is in not a given the sales will be successful. They are smaller in scale than the November NY contemporary, moder and impressionist sales.

Vogel states they will nonetheless have at least a few noteworthy paintings, sculptures and drawings with estimates that are purposely conservative to tempt even the most price-conscious collector. Betting that the appetite for German Expressionist painters is as hearty as it was before the economic crisis, Sotheby’s has put one of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Berlin street scenes on the cover of its Feb. 3 Impressionist and modern art sale catalog. Sotheby’s expects the painting to bring $7.2 million to $10.1 million. “It relates most directly to one in the Museum of Modern Art,” Ms. Newman said. That painting, “Street, Berlin,” is also from 1913. The canvases share many of the same compositional and stylistic elements — both depict mannequinlike passers-by, with a man peering into a shop window on the right — but in the Sotheby’s painting, two female figures are staring straight ahead rather than in profile.

To read the complete NY Times article, click HERE.