The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the upcoming sales over the next few weeks in New York City.The article state the main auction houses hope to sell close to $2 billion in the next couple of weeks. Take a look at the chart of expected or estimated sales from Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips (Click on the image to enlarge). One interesting aspect is that after years of leading sales, Christie's estimated sales are below Sotheby's. This probably has a lot to do with the Taubman sales (and guarantees).
Source: The Wall Street JournalThe white gloves have come off. As the world’s top collectors descend on New York on Wednesday for a two-week series of major auctions that could top $2 billion, the city’s chief auction houses— Sotheby’s, Christie’s International and Phillips—have gone into competitive overdrive.
To secure enough art trophies to sell, the houses wooed consignors with sweetheart deals that once would have been unfathomable, from locking in buyers for half the major offerings upfront—using financial mechanisms called guarantees—to forgoing their own fees altogether. Christie’s specialist Brooke Lampley has been calling potential bidders from her bed, where her doctor ordered her to rest because she is due to deliver a baby any moment. “I can do deals lying down,” she said.
To win the roughly $83 million estate of Belgian banker Louis Franck and his wife, Evelyn, Sotheby’s told the estate it would agree to accept a $1 million fee and turn over all the remaining proceeds to the estate, a fraction of the house’s stated commission of around 12%, according to a person familiar with the deal. The Franck estate includes Vincent van Gogh’s “Landscape Under a Stormy Sky,” which Sotheby’s aims to sell for at least $50 million. Messages left with the Francks’ estate lawyer weren’t returned.
To persuade Turkish financier Kemal Cingillioglu to sell his family’s 1962 Andy Warhol portrait of star Marilyn Monroe, “Four Marilyns,” Christie’s agreed to print the Warhol on the cover of its contemporary-art catalog. That placement is typically reserved for rarely seen works, but this silk-screen came onto the market two years ago at Phillips, selling for $38.2 million. Christie’s has guaranteed Mr. Cingillioglu it will now sell on Tuesday for at least $40 million.
On Monday, Christie’s will also ask roughly $100 million for a single painting of a “Reclining Nude” by Italian modernist Amedeo Modigliani and $80 million for a Pop portrait of a “Nurse” by Roy Lichtenstein.
Boutique auctioneer Phillips, once the go-to place for trendy, young artists, has revamped its slate this season to include 20th-century masters like Giorgio de Chirico and postwar Japanese abstract painters in its Sunday sale. Specialist Jean-Paul Engelen said the competition for blue-chip works is particularly bare-knuckled this season. “We shouldn’t lose our shirts in the process, but that’s what’s happening,” he said. “It’s gotten quite cannibalistic.”
The stakes are high for these auctions, because they serve as a stress test for the art market overall and help reset price levels for dozens of the world’s top artists.
The current round also arrives at a pivot point for the market, which has enjoyed several years of surging strength yet slowed this summer amid volatility in the broader financial markets. Dealers say private art sales have since picked up and a smaller sales series in London last month fared well, but market-watchers will be scrutinizing these New York auctions closely for signs of a market peak.
In a rare twist, all three auction houses are also adjusting to new chief executives, so this series of sales will serve as a referendum on the competitive mettle of Tad Smith at Sotheby’s, Patricia Barbizet at Christie’s and Ed Dolman at Phillips, all of whom were hired in the past year or so.
This season, executives said some of their biggest deals required weeks of intense negotiations. Mr. Dolman said Russian collector Leonid Friedland, whose Mercury Group owns the house, has reassured sellers by extending personal guarantees for a few artworks in its coming sale.
The defining collection of this sales series belongs to Sotheby’s. Starting Wednesday, Sotheby’s will try to sell the biggest estate it has ever handled, the collection of A. Alfred Taubman, its former owner.
After Mr. Taubman died in April at age 91, dealers assumed the estate would go to Sotheby’s, but Mr. Taubman’s younger son, William, said his father insisted the family auction it wherever they wanted, to “maximize prices, not sentiment.” He declined to discuss the financial terms, but three other people familiar with the deal said Christie’s and Sotheby’s each offered to guarantee the estate for around $450 million in August. As negotiations went forward, each offered to guarantee portions of the estate ranging between $350 million and $450 million, the people said.
William Taubman said Christie’s proposal was “excellent” but said that the family gave Sotheby’s a final chance to counter. One night in early September, Mr. Taubman called Mr. Smith at Sotheby’s.
“I am coming to New York tomorrow, and when I land I need to know if I’m coming to York Avenue or 49th Street,” Mr. Taubman said he told Mr. Smith in the phone call. Sotheby’s is on Manhattan’s York Avenue, and Christie’s sits on 49th Street. The next morning as Mr. Taubman was on the plane, he received an email from Mr. Smith that said, “Come to York.”
Sotheby’s said the final, accepted offer included a pledge to guarantee the estate for slightly over $500 million, the auction house’s largest offer ever. If successful, the Taubman estate could surpass the $477 million estate of French designer Yves Saint Laurent sold by Christie’s in 2009.
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