Quantcast
General
0June 05, 2010

Points for Style

Russian art sales are typically a mishmosh of Russian periods and styles, and next week’s sessions at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and MacDougall’s are no exception. The earliest dated painting on offer is a waterfront scene from 1815 by Andrei Martynov, (offered at MacDougall’s with an estimate of £170,000 to £250,000) while the most recent, Valery Yershov’s Vigin Soil Upturned (at Sotheby’s for £12,000 to £18,000) dates to earlier this year (is the paint even dry yet?).

In terms of value, the sweet spot is really early 20th-century avant-garde art; the top three prices achieved at Russian art sales in the past five years went to 20th-century works conceived before 1930 by  esteemed members of the vanguard, Konstantin Somov, Natalia Goncharova and Alexander Iacovleff. When average prices and boom-era growth are taken in to account, however, avant-garde art is not the star of all Russian styles. To find out which styles—and specific schools—grew in value during the boom, see the latest edition of The ART Report.

[wpsc_products product_id='7']

General
0June 04, 2010

Russia's Post-Boom Blues

Was Russian art’s recent influx in value just a boom-era phenomenon? Russian sales achieved most of their highest prices in 2007, when works like Konstantin Somov’s The Rainbow soared in the sales room, overthrowing their estimates by factors of two, three and sometimes even four.

Since 2007, however, both high and average prices in the category have ceased to climb. For analysis of Russian art’s current value, as well as a comparison between Russian art and art from other emerging markets, see the latest edition of The ART Report.

[wpsc_products product_id='7']

General
0June 04, 2010

Taking Stock of Russian Art

In anticipation of the Russian art sales beginning at Sotheby’s London on Monday, Art Research Technologies has devoted the latest edition of The ART Report to Russian paintings, drawings and sculpture.

The 8-page report is available below:

[wpsc_products product_id='7']

General
0May 25, 2010

Honey, I Shrunk the Botero

Whether you love it or love to hate it, there is no avoiding the roly-poly repertoire of the Colombian artist Fernando Botero (see ART’s Latin American ART Report for rankings of Latin American artists by volume, value and single high price).

This week, 23 Boteros are estimated to bring in between $5.4 million and $7.4 million at Christie’s and Sotheby’s. The most highly estimated Botero, a 2002 cast of Woman on a Horse that stands more than eight feet tall, is offered at Christie’s on Wednesday with an estimate of $800,000 to $1.2 million (pictured above right).

A very similar Botero horsewoman, this one cast in 2000,  is available at Sotheby’s (pictured above far right). Measuring a little more than half the size of the Christie’s Botero, the Sotheby’s lot is a little less than half the price ($350,000-$450,000).

For information about recent trends in Botero’s market,

[wpsc_products product_id='5']

Uncategorized
Marion Maneker0April 05, 2009

Art Price Releases 2008 Trend Report

Art Price has released it’s 2008 Trends report. There’s great information in here if you’re willing to do the leg work. But let’s see if we can pull out some highlights.

  • Sotheby’s and Christie’s together account for only 16% of art sales but 73% of the value.
  • London and New York are now tied for market share with 35.6% and 35.75 respectively.
  • Picasso, Bacon, Warhol, Hirst, Monet, Giacometti, Richter, Degas, Fontana and Yves Klein are the top ten artists by auction turnover in 2008.
  • ArtPrice.com doesn’t think the art market will suffer a five year slump similar to the last rapid downturn in the early 1990s because of the broader global buyer base.
  • But if you look at the figures on global turnover, the art market has a long way to fall just to reach the levels of 2001-2003 which was the last slump in the current era. Auction turnover then was a third of 2007′s peak.

Art Price 2008 Trends report

General
Marion Maneker0March 02, 2009

Post-YSL Euphoria? Not a Chance.

Paris is taking some sort of solace in the afterglow of the YSL sale. But even there, no one believes the art market is divorced from the depressed economy, according to Agence France Presse whose report showed up in Khaleej Times Online:

With the economy in the doldrums, the runaway success of this week’s Yves Saint Laurent auction is unlikely to cause a sea change on the flagging art market, but experts believe it can boost investment in art.

A Christie’s competitor, who asked not to be named, said it would help people “understand that art is a good long-term investment, that works such as these turn a profit over 20 or 30 years, and that buying art is also buying pieces you can live with and enjoy, just as Berge and Saint Laurent did.”

New York dealer John Herring, who bought a work worth over 200,000 euros, told AFP he was cheered to see “that art is still selling.” [ . . . ]

“I think this auction may give people confidence that art is still a commodity that people are ready to pay for,” he said. [ . . . ]

“There’s still lots of money around but the psychology is the problem. Here you can see people buying, and that gives confidence.”

French auctioneer Dominique Ribeyre was of the same opinion. “This sale is comforting,” he said. “The big dealers are here along with collectors who have money.”

Seeing works purchased by the YSL/Berge couple decades earlier fly through the roof showed that “art is a safe investment. Someone who bought an oil for 30 million euros did not make a bad deal, and definitely not as bad as investing in financial products.”

Bucking the credit crunch, the sale exceeded expectations and revived French dreams of seeing Paris recover its place as a major global art market capital.

While the French are being sober and looking for siliver linings, the Wall Street Journal’s Wealth Report takes this unfounded swipe at the art market:

Most of the art boom in recent years was fueled by the sale of middling, commodity-like, contemporary art with little or no provenance. The Yves Saint Laurent collection is the opposite: extremely rare and once-in-a-lifetime pieces owned by one of the world’s most glamorous and expert collectors.

It does mean, however, that the wealthy are still willing to spend on art — as long as it is high quality and rare. Just don’t expect it to happen often.

It’s not quite clear whether Damien Hirst is the target of this characterization or just simple ignorance. For all of the interest in Hirst, Koons, Prince and other lesser known artists at auction, the bulk of the big numbers in Contemporary art were for artists like Rotko, Bacon and Warhol who have pretty good provenance. Remember the Rothko that briefly held the record for most valuable work of Contemporary art and achieved that on the strength of David Rockefeller’s provenance? Fontana, Klein and even Basquiat hardly fit that throwaway definition either. Nonetheless, while the premise is weak, the WSJ’s conclusion is sound.

Bumper YSL Sale Shows Art Can Be As Good As Gold (AFP/Khaleej Times)

Sold: The $28 Million Chair (WSJ/Weatlh Report)

Uncategorized
Marion Maneker0February 25, 2009

£40 Billion Strong . . . and Growing?

You know the Maastricht Art Fair is just around the corner when TEFAF releases it’s report on the art market written by economist Claire McAndrew. The Antiques Trade Gazette says the report sees the art market as £40 billion in 2008 having grown 11% since 2007 despite the precipitous drop in sales after September. Here are some other facts from the report:

  • While the US still has 41 per cent of the market and the UK has 30 per cent, France (6%), Germany (3%) and Switzerland (2%) are listed as the only other significant individual countries.
  • Indian art sales totalled £203m in 2007, 30 per cent of it generated in India itself, and Russian art selling outside Russia accounted for £583m. Dubai topped the table as the centre for sales in the Middle East, accounting for £125m worth of business.
  • How these nations will fare in the coming year is anyone’s guess at the moment, particularly when one considers that a high proportion of the Chinese and Indian totals, for instance, came from transactions in contemporary Chinese and Indian art, markets that have been severely hit by the downturn.

TEFAF study values global art market at £4o billion (Antiques Trade Gazette)

Uncategorized
Marion Maneker0February 01, 2009

London Impressionist/Modern Charts

Just some quick charts to provide a reference point for the coming week’s sales in London (all figures are in £):

Evening Sale Totals

London Impressionist/Modern Lots SoldLondon I/M Avg. Price

Uncategorized
Marion Maneker0January 28, 2009

Is Warhol a Leading Indicator . . . Down?

Artnet Offers Some Warhol Market Details

On the occasion of a new show of Warhol’s work at Gagosian,”Warhol from the Sonnabend Collection,” Artnet releases some sales figures for the entire Warhol market which seemed to peak in 2007 with the sale of Green Car Crash for $71 million:

According to Artnet’s Market Performance Report on Andy Warhol, almost $450.1 million worth of works (excluding prints) by the Pope of Pop changed hands at auction in 2007. The total for 2008, however,  is substantially less (even accounting for that $71.7 million lot): $226 million. That’s a drop of 50 percent by value.

A total of 449 Warhol lots were offered in 2007 (again excluding prints), with 388 finding buyers. In 2008, 509 Warhol lots were offered, and 266 sold — a drop in the sell-through rate from 86 percent to 52 percent. For prints, however, the market slow-down is less obvious, with an impressive 980 of 1,105 lots finding buyers in 2007, and 992 of 1,474 lots selling in 2008 — an increase in the number of lots, but a drop in the sell-through from about 88 percent to 67 percent.

Note that the Warhol prints market was able to absorb the same number of works despite the retreat in top end sales.

Art Market Watch (Artnet)

Uncategorized
Marion Maneker0January 20, 2009

UK's Chartered Surveyors See Top-End Drop

The Financial Times reports:

Prices plunged in the last quarter of 2008, according to a survey conducted by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The quarterly poll of surveyors found that art prices in the £50,000-plus ($72,125-plus) range had fallen particularly heavily since the demise of Lehman Brothers, the US bank, signalled the deepening of the economic downturn.

Chris Ewbank of Rics said the downturn in the art and antiques market had not been nearly as dramatic as in other areas of the economy. “The contemporary art sector has soared over the past few years and we are now in the midst of a correction,” he said. Some parts of the market, such as jewellery and silver, had remained stable over the same period, because they were regarded as safe havens in times of economic uncertainty, said the survey.

Top-end art prices finally succumb to crunch (Financial Times)

« Older Posts
Untitled Document