Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Evening Sale – London

So sorry for the late update.  I’m really hoping things will settle down soon and I can get back to updating daily.

So, the sale.  Well, I have to eat my words.  I said I thought the £7m – £10m estimate on the Severini was a bit high.  It ended up selling for £15m ($29.9m).

Monet’s Plage à Trouville went for £7.7m ($15.4m), just over the low-end estimate of £7m.  The Dufy I loved, Le Harve, 14 Juillet, ended up selling for £1.6m ($3m), above it’s £900,000 – £1.2m estimate.

The sale total was £102.2m ($203.8m).  Yes, that’s much lower than Christie’s total, but not bad considering the Sotheby’s sale lacked the masterpieces from the Miller Collection that Christie’s managed to secure.

Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale – London

The entire Impressionist and Modern evening sale was supposed to bring in more than £90m for Christie’s. The works being sold from the Miller collection were supposed to bring in more than £40m. Well, the Monet water lilies from the Miller collection alone managed to do that. Going for £40.9m ($80.5m), Le bassin aux nymphéas, 1919, well exceeded it’s £18m – £24m estimate and set an artist record for Monet. It is now the second most expensive painting sold at a European auction. Tania Buckwell Pos, director of AMI arts consultancy, bought the painting from the front row of the saleroom while on the phone with a client. She declined to give her client’s name or nationality.

I think the demand for this work of art has proved that the Impressionist market is far from dead. For great works, collectors will be willing to part with large sums of money.

To get the Monet, Ms. Buckwell Pos outbid Brett Gorby, a specialist in contemporary art at Christie’s New York, who was also on the phone. However, Mr. Gorby was the successful bidder for Degas’ Danseuses à la barre, which sold at £13.5m ($26.5m), more than doubling its high estimate of £6m.

The early fauvist portrait by Matisse, La Pudeur (L’italienne), 1906, failed to reach its estimate of £3m – £4m, selling for only £2.5m ($4.9m). Still, the sale did incredibly well overall, achieving £144.4m ($284.5m) for Christie’s, the highest ever for a European auction.

Christie’s Imps&Mods Press Call

Friday morning I was at Christie’s King Street to view the exhibition for their Impressionist & Modern Sale that will be held tomorrow evening at 7 pm. The works they have in this sale are absolutely stunning. They’re offering 17 works from the collection of J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller, one of the most important collections of Impressionist and modern art ever. Mr. Miller was an industrialist (from Columbus, Indiana) and, along with his wife, he was a philanthropist and patron of the arts and architecture. The 17 works are expected to bring in more than £40m ($80m).

The Miller collection includes one of the best Monets I have ever seen outside of a museum. Le Basin aux nympéas, 1919, is a large, rectangular painting of Monet’s beloved water lilies. According to Christie’s press release, it is one of a set of four paintings that were released by the artist during his lifetime. Of the other paintings, one is in a private collection, one is at the Met, and another was divided. It’s a gorgeous painting, just the type of Monet that people think of when they envision a Monet, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it performs. The estimate is £18m – £24m. I’ll let you know how it does.

They also have a monumental Henry Moore bronze from the Miller collection up for sale. Draped Reclining Woman, 1957/58, is number 5 of an edition of 6, with all the other editions in public collections. With an estimate of £2.5m – £3.5m, I’m pretty sure collectors will be clambering for it (or at least museums will be).

Degas’s Danseuses à la barre, circa 1880, is also in the sale.  Pastel, gouache, and charcoal on paper, it’s a lovely piece where one can literally trace a single crayon mark along the paper.  As with the Miller Monet, it’s exactly what one thinks of when envisioning a scene of Degas’ ballet dancers during practice.  Originally owned by the Havemeyers (American collectors of Degas during his life) and with an estimate of £4m – £6m, I think it will do very well.

There’s a lovely fauvist portrait by Matisse from 1906.  La Pudeur (L’Italienne), is fantastically colorful and bold.  Bought by Sarah Stein (sister-in-law of Gertrude and Leo and a great patron of Matisse) during Matisse’s life and with a rather complete provenance, the painting is estimated at £3m – £4m.

I’m looking forward to watching to sale, and I’ll let you all know how it goes.  All photos courtesy of Christie’s.

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.