If I had one takeaway after the sales this season it is simply this: overall the art market is in good order. Quality works of art, Post-War notably, at conservative estimates will find buyers willing to pay top prices. Despite the yearning of many press pessimists to expedite the fall of the art market it will not happen, for now. In these straightened times of geo-political mess and high(-ish) interest rates I think a huge number of collectors find safety in tangible assets and the idea of owning a stunning Picasso as opposed to US treasuries is a pretty solid bet in 2025!
Christie’s got the week off to a solid start but there was talk beforehand that the main event, the sale of the Riggio Collection, would be a struggle. It was a bit of a disappointment given the high expectations beforehand but there was not a bloodbath by any means as lots did find buyers. Much of the work was shopworn and the market is not given to chasing works of art that have been on the market in recent years – especially during the auction houses’ fruitful era of loose money, light regulation and sky-high premiums. The key prices were fetched off the back of Irrevocable Bids (IB) where the main lots, Magritte (34m USD) and Mondrian (top lot at 47.6m USD), scraped through at a probable loss to the house. That said there were some stunning results across the week with the whole series making a colossal 693m USD, which far exceeded the low estimate. Individual highlights from the week were the Marlene Dumas masterpiece, ‘Miss January’, a wonderful and explicit life-size semi-nude painting of 1997 which made 13.6m USD and my personal favourite from the sales – a Claude Monet ‘Peupliers’ that realised a fabulous 43m USD. The following day, in the Christie’s day sale, there was a notable buzz surrounding the impressionist and Modern art day sale that was unlike anything I had come across since pre-covid – the room was full! Optimistically I hope that buyers are flocking back to NYC in a way that they have not done before. Perhaps that explains the great results – collectors were looking at paintings in person again. As everyone knows, or should know, a painting or a sculpture is 100 times better in person than on a screen. My gut is that buyers are coming for value and finding themselves competing with other bargain-hunters creating a frisson of competition – the auctioneer’s secret sauce.
Sotheby’s had a bit of a mixed night for their 20th Century sales but the lack of a buyer for the Diego Giacometti was somewhat understandable even though I did love the work; 70m USD for an editioned cast, albeit hand-painted, was a step too far. One of the key objectives of any auction house is to attract great items at conservative estimates, i.e. the transaction (and bidding competition) is key. The estimate range is only a tool to garner bidding – it is not necessarily a value. My feeling is that this Diego was simply too high. It was a 55m USD sculpture as per the 2013 result (50m USD) for a non-painted piece. One colleague felt that the fact it was painted may even have put off potential bids too: from traditional bronze sculpture buyers. Otherwise, there were some fabulous results with the two Kupka paintings from the early 1920s making 5.9 and 5.3 USD. Frantisek Kupka is an artist that deserves a top-class retrospective, as his work typifies the kind of colourful Cubism that has been so popular in the US to date. If you get the chance to view the Kampa Museum in Prague you can witness his finest works which are truly extraordinary. As I mentioned in an Instagram post the gouache by Magritte ‘La Bonne aventure’ was quite sublime but with a price tag to match at 3-4m USD. However, it managed to sell at 3.3m USD and underlines the insatiable appetite for his work. The market for Magritte knows no bounds and the ‘Empire of Lights’ at Christie’s managed to make its money back at 34m USD after being bought merely a year or two ago. Yes, I do feel the works on paper are overvalued but not all his work is that dear. The best works to chase are the earlier, tougher paintings linked to the early years of Surrealism. The artist’s best era for sure. Picasso’s late and large Musketeer fetched 15m USD and was one of the centrepieces of the sale series. The staggering popularity of the later works is due to the easily recognisable style, the monumental scale of the works and, most importantly, the self-portrait subject matter.
In the contemporary, i.e. 21st Century sales / NOW sales, the Sotheby’s Evening sale featured the work of the dealers Danielle Luxembourg and Barbara Gladstone as well as a very strong multi-owner sale too. The main winner in the Evening sale was the Jean-Michel Basquiat work on paper that fetched 16m USD. This was a crucial picture showing genuine spontaneity and avoids the ‘painting by numbers’ generality of much of his later work that was made to please his unscrupulous dealers in the mid-1980s. A large Rashid Johnson work that I recalled from a Hauser & Wirth show in London (c. 2023?) made a staggering 1.8m USD – it was a large ceramic-tile collage full of dynamism. Lichtenstein saw terrific prices given the vast swathe of work coming from the artist’s estate which was 100% sold with some huge prices of up to 5m USD for his late period, somewhat generic, 1990s output. Bidding was strong for established artists, but the most interesting record of the week was for a painting by Michael Armitage entitled ‘Mpektoni’ (2.4m USD) – he is an artist gaining a huge reputation and following in the US and UK via his galleries White Cube and David Zwirner. As has become the norm in these sales weeks there was a random lot or two including a Frank Lloyd-Wright pedestal lamp that made the world record for the architect of 7.5m USD. It is sad that such items can’t be sold in the context of other design pieces as it supports the lesser departments and keeps the auction houses putting on regular sales – seemingly a dying ‘art’ being left to the likes of Heritage / Bonham’s in the US and Artcurial / Tajan etc. in Europe.
Over at Christie’s there was a major Warhol withdrawn at 30m USD but otherwise the Contemporary sale results were healthy enough. Their blue-chip Basquiat, ‘Baby Boom’ of 1982, executed on an unfinished stretcher so synonymous with his most visceral, haggard, oils made a deserved 23m USD and was one of the finest and least discussed pictures in the sales. Whilst I am somewhat sceptical of the artistic depth and consistency of JMB’s work I do think that the finest 1982 pictures (without collage) are amongst the masterpieces of their time. He should not be compared with the graffiti dross displayed by the likes of Banksy / Kaws / Blek le Rat et al. Other top prices saw Condo continue to thrive with a large yellow late work making 2.3m USD; Ruscha, Cecily Brown and even Damien Hirst all made great prices.
I thought it was interesting that the day sales across all the houses were strong and when 60m USD totals are reached as a norm it is because the middle market is in rude health. This is a great sign for the future as the middle market is a fabulous indication of strong financial clout within the system. So often we focus on the top of the market, but it is in the Day Sales, known in auction house management as ‘the engine rooms’, that the art market finds its best barometer. I was intrigued by the prices for Joan Mitchell’s works on paper: 700,000 USD was paid for a large pastel at Sotheby’s. This gives us some indication that her paintings’ prices are beyond the reach of most and thus works on paper are now the bidding magnet. Day sales are where the relative bargains are found, and it was in the Sotheby’s Day sale that arguably the masterpiece of the entire season was hiding: a Georges Lemmen pointilliste painting of his sister was priced inexplicably at 50,000-70,000 USD. She fetched a cool 700,000 USD off the back of deep online, and live, bidding. Such a picture was always going to cause a fuss, and I thought 500k USD would be the right figure, but the buyer was more bullish – and perhaps a little braver than I would have been!
Overall, it was a week that under-promised and over-delivered which is always satisfactory. Please do get in touch if you need any advice, and remember: use a good advisor with both auction house and trade experience before buying high value works of art.