The NY Times has a preview of the fall auctions for New York. As I posted yesterday on how hurricane Sandy impacted the planning phases, here the NY Times looks at the art, as well as art and financial market uncertainty. The article notes that some of the season's biggest sellers are well known art collectors, such as hedge fund manager Steven Cohen and casino mogul Stephen Wynn. On the buying side, it notes it is an icon market, with collectors only willing to spend premiums on the best examples.
The NY Times reports
Source: The NY Times
When the big fall auction season in New York starts on Wednesday, Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips de Pury & Company are hoping that the flight from cash into art will continue given the financial uncertainty in the United States and especially in Europe. The catalogs are bursting with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of paintings, drawings and sculptures, many of which are being sold by collectors hoping to take advantage of the growth in the global art market.
American collectors in particular are among this fall’s biggest sellers. Unsure of what the political future holds, they have decided to sell art now, fearing that capital gains taxes on fine art could rise from their current 28 percent, already higher than the 15 percent federal rate on the gains from selling stocks and bonds.
“That concern is what accounts for more discretionary selling this fall,” said Tobias Meyer, head of Sotheby’s contemporary art department worldwide. “Collectors are looking closely at their assets and evaluating their collections.”
Although the October auctions in London timed to coincide with the Frieze Art Fair there were bumpy, Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s in the Americas, pointed out that while the stock market has seen a 3 percent drop since September, the art market — both at auction and in private sales — has “remained robust” with a marked increase in new buyers.
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