Now the NY Times states there is property from Madoff victims in the upcoming Impressionist and Modern sale at this weeks Sotheby's and Christies sale. The article also reviews how the major auctions houses are dealing with the changing economic and collecting environment and previews several items from the sales.
I will be posting results of the sales this week on the AW Blog, so stay tuned.
The article states, But now collectors are loath to part with anything if they don’t have to, and few high-value pieces are coming to auction. In addition, auction houses are consciously trying to keep estimates low in hopes of creating the illusion that there are bargains to be had.
“It’s been tough,” admitted Brett Gorvy, a co-head of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art department. “How do you persuade people to sell at new price points without financial incentives? How do you put together a relatively risk-free sale?”
He and his colleagues at Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & Company are playing it safe, assuming that buyers will too. The buzzword this spring is conservative, with catalogs filled with blue-chip artists rather than emerging names.
“There’s more comfort in Impressionist and modern art because it has been less volatile,” said Guy Bennett, head of Christie’s Impressionist and modern art department in New York. “We haven’t seen the rapid acceleration that other markets have.”
In years past dealers took their cues from the auction houses, often organizing shows of artists who had sold well. Now the opposite is happening. Capitalizing on the highly praised exhibition of “Mosqueteros,” a show of late Picassos at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, both Sotheby’s and Christie’s are featuring the artist on the covers of their Impressionist and modern art catalogs.To read the article, click HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment