NY Art Sales Post Election

The just posted an article on the upcoming NYC art sales. The first thing of note is that in 2015 the sales totaled $2.35 billion, this year expectations are for a minimum of $1.35 billion.

The Telegraph reports

The trend for declining art auction totals this year is expected to continue at next week’s all-important sales of Impressionist Modern and Contemporary art in New York. Last November combined sales by Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips were $2.35 billion. This year, the equivalent sales are estimated to fetch a minimum $1.35 billion, which would be a drop of 42.5 per cent.

Not only have owners of high value works been reluctant to part with them, there has been a sense of nervousness about the outcome of the US presidential election which has made cautious people even more unwilling to sell.

Taking the biggest step down are the Impressionist and Modern art sales which racked up a record $1.2 billion last year with the help of the Alfred Taubman collection at Sotheby’s and an additional curated sale of artists’ muses (headed by a $170 million Modigliani) at Christie’s. This year there are no such attractions.

Values, though, have not notably depreciated. Carrying the highest estimate of the week of over $50 million is Edvard Munch’s Girls on the Bridge in Sotheby’s Impressionist sale. The painting was last on the market in 2008 when it sold for $30.8 million. At Christie’s, the star lot in its Impressionist sale is an example from Monet’s Haystack series, last sold in 1999 for $12 million, and now asking for $45 million. Such examples are rare on the market, the last being seen at auction 14 years ago.

There is, however, a whiff of hardship sales by Russian buyers, no longer the force in the market they once were, such as a late Chagall, replete with garlanded bridesmaid, violins and donkeys that was bought in 2007 for $6.9 million and is back with a $7 million estimate.

There are signs too of German selling – the unusual sight of works by German expressionists, Max Beckmann and Otto Mueller for sale in New York – to escape proposed restrictions on the export from Germany of valuable works over 50 years old.

In the contemporary art sales, Christie’s gets the ball rolling with a topical offering by American satirical artist, Jonathan Horowitz, whose 43 panel work, Obama 08, featuring portraits of all previous presidents, leaving a gap for the next one, is looking to test the artist’s current $131,000 record. Sellers here include Eric Clapton with a Gerhard Richter abstract he paid approximately $1 million for in 2006, now estimated at $18 million; and US print magnate, Peter Brant, who is selling a Cranach-inspired painting by John Currin of two nudes which he bought in 2008 for a record $5.5 million and is now hoping for more than $12 million.

Top price at Christie’s is $40 million expected for a late 1970s abstract by Willem de Kooning. The painting last sold at auction in 2006 for $27.1 million to art advisers Eykyn Maclean, bidding for a client in Las Vegas who has since sold it on.

Sotheby’s sale is bolstered by the $100 million collection, bristling with luxurious Richter abstracts and succulent de Koonings, of the late Steven Ames and his widow, Ann. Among the other sellers are Peter Brant, again, with a $15 million Basquiat which he tried to sell, unsuccessfully, seven years ago when the market was at a low point with a $9 million estimate; and Greek collector, Dakis Joannou, who has a large, frantic collage of discarded posters and pamphlets by America’s chosen representative for next year’s Venice Biennale, Mark Bradford, with a $3 million estimate. Record prices are in the offing too for paintings by Milton Avery and David Hockney.

Phillips is the only auction room to come in with a higher pre-sale estimate than last year. It leads with a stunning photo-realist painting of a fighter plane by Gerhard Richter reportedly from the collection of Microsoft founder, Paul Allen, estimated at $25 million. It was last at auction in 2007 when it sold for $11.2 million. Another seller of note is fashion designer, Tommy Hilfiger, though he is not banking on big profits. A Damien Hirst butterfly collage he bought in 2011 for $1.4 million is estimated at $1 million.

The sale also offers a stack of coloured rectangular aluminium cubes by arch minimalist, Donald Judd. The sculpture was bought by Canadian collector, Francois Odermatt in 2011 for $2 million and now has a guide price also of $2 million. As it has no reserve price, it could, theoretically, be bought for next to nothing; but it won’t. Odermatt and other sellers who know the market are confident that art will make its price whatever the election result.  

Source: The Telegraph