Foreign Investment

Just wanted to point you all towards an interesting article from the NYTimes by Landon Thomas where he discusses recent foreign investment in America and (briefly) links the strength of the art market to foreign investment:

“While the Chrysler Building and other assets like art may bring a form of prestige, they also appear to be holding their value better than financial institutions and the broader stock market.

In the art market, this relative strength has been tied to foreign buying. Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian steel magnate, recently bought the sculpture “Hanging Heart” by Jeff Koons for $23 million. In another trophy purchase, a Russian fertilizer billionaire, Dmitry Rybolovlev, bought Donald Trump’s Palm Beach mansion for about $100 million.”

Enjoy.

Old Master Week London

It’s that time of year in London – time for endless summer rain and sales of Old Master paintings and drawings.  Christie’s held their Old Master evening sale on Tuesday 8 July, while Sotheby’s sale was last evening.

Last night’s sale at Sotheby’s reaped £51.5m ($101.5m), with 76.7% of the 91 lots selling.  According to the press release, 58% of those lots sold over their high-end estimate.

Christie’s didn’t manage to bring quite as much money in on Tuesday night, but then they also sold a much smaller number of paintings with only 48 lots offered.  Still, only 31 of those lots sold, making the sale total £24.1m ($47.5m).  However, Christie’s did have a re-discovered French masterpiece by Jean-Antoine Watteau,  La Surprise, the location of which has been unknown for nearly 200 years and the painting was presumed destroyed.  The Watteau ended up selling to an anonymous buyer for £12.4m ($24.4m), well above it’s estimate of £3m – £5m.  It seems the previous record for a work by Watteau at auction was established when Le conteur sold at Christie’s London on 13 December 2000 for £2.4m.  It also was a record for a French Old Master at auction.

Watteau's La Surprise, sold at Christie's London

At the moment, I don’t have the information on the breakdown of buyers at Christie’s, but I do know that 42% of the buyers at Sotheby’s were British, 35% other European, and 16% American.  An interesting mix of numbers.  Good to see that the Old Master market is still going strong.

Sotheby’s Evening Contemporary Sale – London

Once again, sorry for the late update.  I’ve been working on my dissertation all week and, after an intensive day of reading and writing about art markets and entering auction data into a spreadsheet, it’s a bit hard to concentrate enough to talk about art market news not relating to the Japanese market.

So, the Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening sale that occurred last week on 1 July.  Not surprisingly, the beautiful yet small Study for the Head of George Dyer, 1967, by Francis Bacon exceeded the £8m – £10m estimate (that was available on request) to sell for £13.8m ($27.5m).  Because it is such a small (14 in x 12 in) painting and a study, I wasn’t expecting a crazy price like Abramovich paid for the large Triptych.  However, with the beautiful colors and movement and intimacy and strong brush strokes, I had no doubt that it would go over estimate.

Study for the Head of George Dyer by Francis Bacon

I was, however, surprised to see how well Murakami’s work did at the sale.  DOB Flower, 2000, sold for £825,250 ($1.6m).  Mushroom-1, 2000, went for £481,250 ($959,709) and a statue of his character Kiki from a 2000 edition of 5 came in at £361,250 ($720,405).  While Kiki came in underestimate, the two paintings surpassed their high-end estimates.  I’m surprised by this because they’re very impersonal Murakamis, I haven’t researched them but I assume they were produced in the studio.  However, they did both come through Galerie Perrotin in Paris where they were exhibited in 2001.  Also, they both show iconic characters often produced by Murakami.  Still, despite my surprise, I’m happy – helps me in proving my dissertation hypothesis!

DOB Flower by Takashi Murakami

The U2 Basquiat did alright, selling for £5.1m ($10.2m), under the high-end estimate of £6m, but still a nice little packet for the band to split.

Basquiat owned by U2 on display at Sotheby\

And Gormley’s maquette for Angel of the North, 1996, sold for £2.3m ($4.6m), well above the £600,000 – £800,00 estimate.

The sale total was £94.7m ($188.9m), just exceeding the pre-estimate of £92.6m.   It does seem to be a bit of a bear market at the moment.  But I’m not yet sure how much of this is a result of the overall financial situation, or how much of this is just contemporary art prices re-adjusting themselves from the excessive highs they have been at lately.  I’m rather inclined to think it’s simply a bit of both.

NB – all sale results include Buyer’s Premium

Sotheby’s Press Call

I was at Sotheby’s yesterday morning for yet another press call. This one was “to mark the start of £500 million selling season”. Modern, Impressionist, and Contemporary works were all on display. The Impressionist & Modern evening sale will be 25 June at 7 pm and the Contemporary evening sale is scheduled for 1 July at 7 pm.

Some of the highlights of the exhibition:

-Gormley’s life size maquette of Angel of the North (est£600,000 – £800,000) was the darling of the photographers. An edition of 5, it seems all are in the hands of private owners.

-Severini’s Danseuse takes the front cover of the Imps&Mods catalogue in all its pastel glory. It has a strong geometric presence and looks like it owes much to German expressionism. However, I just can’t get over the fact that it looks like it should be hanging in a five year old girl’s room. As a girl who always had pink walls in her bedroom, I should know. Plus, I think the estimate is a little high at £7m-£10m.

-A few Giacometti sculptures – maybe hoping for Abramovich wannabes?

-There’s a Monet beach-scene up that Sotheby’s is really promoting. It’s a nice work, but it was recently bought-in in New York and it’s by no means outstanding. Sad considering Christie’s has a lovely Monet for their Imps&Mods sale that I’m really looking forward to seeing.

-Raoul Dufy’s Le Havre -14 Juillet was by far my favorite piece of the Imps&Mods followed closely by Kandinsky’s Park von St. Cloud – mit reiter. Both lovely pieces.

-The band U2 is selling a Basquiat that they bought collectively in 1989. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of Basquiat (probably because I’m not actually old enough to remember his work being new and exciting), but this painting is a fabulous one. According to Alex Branczik, deputy director of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Department, the band bought the painting together in 1989 as a sort of “insurance policy” (though, as Alex said, after Joshua Tree they didn’t really need it). Apparently Adam Clayton is the collector of the group and the one who convinced the other three to invest in the painting. Well done, Adam.

-Three Murakamis are in the contemporary sale – a DOB Flower and a Mushrooms paintings. and also a Kiki sculpture. Not overly exciting, but nice to see my golden man back in the evening sales.

-The lovely Study for the Head of George Dyer is in the sale. It was a joy to be able to see it again. Such a fantastic painting. I’ve never been a huge Bacon fan (not that I don’t love his compositions/style/colors, but they really just don’t do much for me aesthetically) but this portrait is absolutely gorgeous. While the estimate is upon request, it seems Sotheby’s is banking on £8m-£10m. There’s another Bacon in the sale as well, Figure Turning. Not nearly as nice as the portrait, but a really great composition of movement and very Bacon.

Image courtesy of Sothebys.com.

-Some older Gilbert and George silver prints. Really lovely ones, none of their recent “we’re obviously doing this to try and shock you, aren’t you so shocked?” work.

Basically, they have some really great works lined up for the Contemporary sale, and a few strong ones in the smaller Impressionist & Modern sale. I’m looking forward to being in the saleroom those nights.

Art Market Indicator?

While many people have been saying the art market is still strong and buoyant, many have also said the art market is about ready for a bursting of the bubble. I generally believe that there will always be interest and investment for the top 10% of any viable market. Afterall, there is more money in the world than ever before and those who hold the most money hold more than ever before. As with most luxury goods, the best art will always have a buyer. Even more so, since art has an aesthetic value outside of the raw materials, and therefore extra benefits can be gained from works of art outside of monetary gains. However, this says nothing about the other 90% of the art market that might not be quite so blue-chip.

That’s why I was a bit worried to find that the Olympia Art & Antiques Fair was absolutely deserted today when I was there. Granted, I only popped in for a short look and it was during lunchtime on a weekday. Also, the fair has already been running for 5 days. But still, the place was pretty dead and it is running until 15 June.  I know from my time there that TEFAF was packed and the antiques stalls were overrun with customers.  So the top customers are interested and buying.  Yet Olympia, not quite as high profile as TEFAF, seemed slow.  Let’s hope it was simply the fact that I made it around lunch time.  Afterall, the Form Art and Design Fair at Olympia earlier this spring was pretty hopping on a weekday.  I should be able to make it to Olympia one more time before it closes, so I shall update on the situation then.