ART Report - Focus on Impressionist & Modern

I am an advocated for the use of more quantitative analysis in appraising. The connoisseurship component will always be there, but by combining connoisseurship, forensic analysis and quantitative analysis I believe value judgments will be stronger, repeatable, and more sustainable.

In past issues of Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies I have always tried include articles with quantitative approaches to solving value problems, including Q-CAMM, the Mei Moses index, and provenance regression analysis to name only a few.

In the new 2011 edition Katherine Jentleson, editor of the ART Report contributed an article entitled The Blue Chip Market of Grandma Moses: An Outsider Artist Inside the Mainstream Auction Market. The 2011 edition of the Journal will be available soon.

This months ART Report focuses on the Modern and Impressionist sector of the market.

IF THE STAR-STUDDED LINEUPS of next week's Impressionist & Modern sales are any indication, the houses are hoping for a repeat of last year's first quarter glory, when Alberto Giacometti's L'Homme qui marche soared to a world record price of $104.3 million. The big-ticket lots this February are works by Pablo Picasso and Paul Gauguin. Although these paintings are unlikely to echo the 2010 performance of Giacometti's blockbuster sculpture, they are both expected to sell in excess of $10 million. Francis Bacon, whose works are usually reserved for Contemporary sales, also makes an appearance at Sotheby's single-owner auction on the 10th; Bacon's Portrait of Lucian Freud (est. $11.2 million-$14.5 million) is the most highly-estimated work by the artist to hit the block since November 2008.

Christie's, meanwhile, will feature high quality lots in its Art of the Surreal evening sale: Nearly one third of the 31 Surrealist lots on offer are expected to exceed $1 million, and the average mid-estimate on a Surrealist lot ($1,170,514) is 76% greater than it was in 2008. All eyes will be on René Magritte's L'aimant, which is expected to bring $5.5 million to $8.7 million. Overall, the average mid-estimate for a work on offer next week is $566,930, up by 10% from last year's February sessions and up 33% since 2009. Nineteen lots are expected to bring more then $5 million compared to 12 in 2010 and 10 in 2009.

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COMING SOON! The Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies - 2011.

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