Resilience and unexpected growth in global secondary market

Pandemic notwithstanding, auction results in the first half of this year have exceeded pre-pandemic levels at Christies, Sotheby’s, and Phillips: global sales for the trio hit US$5.9 billion, up by 230% from US$1.79 billion for the same period in 2020.  And perhaps not coincidentally, online-only sales at Christies, Sotheby’s, and Phillips have emerged as a major growth area.

Perhaps some of this demonstrable ‘resilience’ and growth can be attributed to the continued strength of the Asian market:  both Sotheby’s, and Christie’s recent summer sales witnessed a dominance of successful bidding by Hong Kong based collectors for much of the inventory at the higher end.

Another interesting development over the past 6 months has been the reported willingness by the auction houses to accept cryptocurrencies for several lots during the sales.  Whilst the houses might appear to be tailoring the inventory for this specific clientele, it certainly hasn’t resulted in an uptick in the sale of these works. 

Another growth area is what has been coined as the “red chip art phenomenon”, art market journalist Scott Reyburn’s new term to describe art by younger artists now appearing at auction and selling for well above retail values. 

As noted in a previous post, the current auction climate prices for young, figurative painters is exceeding that of some of the more historically expensive artists at auction, such as Koons and Picasso. The auction debut for Flora Yukhnovich for example at Phillips London sale, being a prime example. With an estimate of US$60,000 to US$80,000, it sold for an astonishing US$950,000 on the hammer (US$1.2 million with BP).  With only five solo shows to date and the artist having never received an institutional exhibition, this level of speculative buying has certainly reached new heights. 

Of course, the question on this point – is it sustainable…

Images:

Lot 50, Jeff Koons (b. 1955). Gazing Ball (Demeter), 2014. Plaster and glass. 123.8 x 86.7 x 102.9 cm. Sold for USD 998,000, Phillips, New York, 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, 23 June 2021.

Lot 46, Banksy, Love Is In The Air, spray paint on canvas 20, 50.8 x 43.3 cm. Ed’n: 4/5 Sold for US $1,179,500, Phillips, New York, 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, 23 June 2021.

©Catherine Asquith 2021

Christie’s $212.5 M. London and Paris Sales

On Wednesday, Christie’s staged its marquee modern and contemporary art sales in London and Paris. The back-to-back sales, made $212.5 million with buyer’s premium across 82 lots, hammering at $176.9 million, above the $128 million pre-sale estimate and realizing a strong 90 percent sell-through rate.

Notwithstanding the strength and dominance of Asian collectors at auctions over the past 6 months, for these particular sales, bidding from this region “was nothing out of the ordinary, with much of these buyers’ attention focused on a few lots by George Condo, Yayoi Kusama and Edgar Degas.”

Among the top lots, Picasso’s L’étreinte (1969) sold for £14.7 million ($20.3 million) in its auction debut. Two bidders from New York and London competed for the guaranteed work with the hammer eventually falling at £12.6 million ($17.4 million), putting the final sum just above its £11 million high estimate.

Alberto Giacometti’s bronze sculpture Falling Man (ca. 1950–51) attracted three bidders, two on the phone from New York and London and another from a man in the salesroom finally realizing a hammer price of £11.7 million ($16.2 million), meeting its low estimate of $16 million.

René Magritte La Vengeance (1936) drew interest from six clients, who drove the final price to £12.5 million ($17.3 million).

Read the full article here:

Images:
The 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale - Live auction on 30 June at Christies King Street, London.
Photo: GUY BELL

Lot 8
PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)
L'Étreinte
signed ‘Picasso’ (lower centre); dated ’23.10.69.’ (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
44 ¾ x 57 ½ in. (113.6 x 146 cm.)
Painted in Mougins on 23 October 1969

Sotheby’s (London) British & Modern Art Sale

Lot 114, Cy Twombly (1928 - 2011), Untitled, 1964, oil, wax crayon, and graphite on canvas, 100 by 109.8 cm. (39⅜ by 43¼ in.). SOLD for a hammer price of £6.6 million (US$9.2 million)

Sotheby’s staged its marquee British and Modern Art sales in London on 29 June. The back-to-back sales led by Sotheby’s veteran auctioneers Oliver Barker and Helena Newman made £156.2 million (US$217 million) combined across 83 lots, landing within the pre-sale estimate £119.7 million-£170.3 million (US$165.8 million–US$235.9 million) and seeing an 88 percent sell-through rate.

Highlights included the portrait of David Hockney by Lucian Freud from 2002 that went for £14.9 million (US$20.7 million) with buyer’s premium; Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract painting Tensions calmée (1937) realized £21.2 million (US$29.5 million) with buyer’s premium; and Pablo Picasso’s vibrant late-period double-figure portrait Homme et femme au bouquet (1970) selling to an Asian phone bidder for a hammer price of £8 million (US$11.1 million). 

Works by Warhol, Cy Twombly and Frank Auerbach also attracted strong interest.

Read the full report here

Which Emerging Artists Are Most in Demand? What Phillips’s New York Sales Can Tell Us

Flora Yukhnovich, Pretty Little Thing, 2019

The London-based auction house Phillips has gained a reputation as the go-to venue to acquire works by emerging artists in high demand on the primary market. Each season, the New York day and evening sales at Phillips typically generate records for rising talent, and last week, that was certainly the case. At those sales, new benchmarks were set for 26 artists, including Cinga Samson, Avery Singer, Titus Kaphar, Julie Curtiss, and Kehinde Wiley. Together, these sales brought in a collective $153 million with buyer’s premium across 324 lots, surpassing the $101 million hammer low estimate.

…But which artists are at the top of collectors’ lists? Read about the works from Phillips’s New York sales that saw the most competition among bidders.

Phillips New York, 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

Records set for Cinga Samson, Avery Singer, Vija Celmins, Titus Kaphar and Julie Curtiss at Phillips's $118.2m evening sale

LOT 4, Avery Singer, “Untitled”, 2018, acrylic on canvas stretched over wood panel, 85 1/8 x 95 in. (216.2 x 241.3 cm) Estimate US$1,200,000 - 1,800,000 SOLD for US$4,144,000

Auction house chose to hold its 20th century and contemporary art evening sale in New York during what is traditionally the London season due to "detonated" calendar.

Edward Dolman at a post sale press conference noted that the global pandemic has “detonated the traditional sales calendar”, adding, “[w]e know our international clients now will buy great works they see, properly estimated and presented, at whatever time of year we present them.”

Deputy chairman and worldwide co-head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, John-Paul Engelen added “We’re a nimble house, and therefore we are basically able to move where we think the right moment is”.

Read more here

Hong Kong: Spring Auctions

Lot 11 | Bernard Frize, Toky, 2018, acrylic and resin on canvas, 180 x 255 cm
Estimate: HK$1,000,000 - 1,500,000 / Hammer price: HK$2,100,000 / Price realized: HK$2,646,000

Hong Kong’s evening sales of Modern and Contemporary art this Spring season raised a total of HK$3.45 billion (US$445 million) against the total estimate of HK$2.97 billion to HK$4.21 billion. This was 67.6% higher than the total sales in Summer 2020, and 27.4% higher than the previous record season in Autumn 2020.

Despite the disruption caused by Covid-19 across the global art market, Hong Kong continues to demonstrate confidence at the top-end of the art market, and the increasingly important role of Hong Kong as a global art market hub.

Notably the collaborative ‘white glove’ sale of Phillips and Poly Auctions, “20th Century & Contemporary & Design” held on 8 June pulled in a robust total of US$63.7m, garnered 17 artist records and demonstrated the measure of a strategic alliance which played to the strengths of each party: Phillips international presence and curation of the sale, and Poly’s impressive clientele from mainland China and major cities in S.E. Asia.

Phillips attributed the success of the sale to a live auction experience that saw bidders in auction rooms in Hong Kong and Beijing, phone bidders, and 800 online bidders participate simultaneously.  Jonathan Crockett, Phillips Asia chairman noted the strength of Asian buyers in “building global demand for the modern and contemporary art” categories.

Roy Lichtenstein’s “White Brushstroke I” set to hit the rostrum

A major highlight of Sotheby’s New York’s forthcoming Contemporary Art, Evening Auction is Roy Lichtenstein’s “White Brushstroke I” of 1965 carrying an estimate of $20/30 million.

One of the most striking examples from Lichtenstein’s iconic series of Brushstroke paintings, “White Brushstroke I” is from a series of 15 canvases executed in 1965-66 and which are regarded as pivotal masterworks of the Pop Art movement.

The painting is one of the few Brushstroke canvases remaining in private hands, with eight examples already held in or promised to such museum collections as the Art Institute of Chicago, Kunsthaus Zürich, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, among others.

White Brushstroke I was first exhibited in the historic debut of the series at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York in November-December 1965. The painting also has featured in numerous museum exhibitions covering Lichtenstein’s career, including: the artist’s early survey at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in 1969; the major traveling retrospective organized by the Guggenheim from 1993–94; and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and several other preeminent institutions.

#auctions #international #Lichtenstein #popart #prepurchasereport #artadvisor #artexpertise

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The state of the art market: a brief overview

Pierre Soualges, Peinture 162 x 130cm 14 Avril 1962”, 1962, oil on canvas, 162 x 130cm. SOLD: Sotheby’s Paris, June 2017.

According to Dr Clare McAndrew’s 2019 Art Market Report, the global art market accounted for US$67.4 billion last year, an increase of 6% from the previous year, which points to positive growth in the sector. The three main markets, the United States, the United Kingdom and China, remain the strongest accounting for 84% of the global market’s total value.

The other salient points in McAndrew’s report are:

·         Millennials emerged as active market participants;

·         The online market has witnessed continued growth;

·         Auction figures rose by 3% “year on year”; and

·         Art fairs continue to play a central role in the global art market.

Sotheby’s Mei Moses Index discerns a shift in market trends; up until recently, Impressionist and Modern Art held a prominent position in secondary market growth.  However, over the past two years, it is now the Post-War and Contemporary Art market which has seen the strongest growth, up by 12.8% compared with the Impressionist and Modern Art market at 10.8%. 

This shift in investment has been evidenced in newsworthy, strong results for artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Pierre Soulages, Zao Wou-ki and Alberto Giacometti.

Whilst the “Basquiat phenomenon” has garnered an unprecedented command of the art market, with record breaking auction results, and survey/retrospective shows at numerous, prestigious museums and galleries, the perhaps less ‘spectacular’ artists, such as Soulages, Zao Wou-ki and Giacometti for example, have been steadily accruing value; suggestive of a more educated sector of the market re-assessing previously over-looked historical masters and preferring the ‘long game’ investment. 

©Catherine Asquith 2019

Auction news: Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1960.

Sotheby's will be selling San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) "Untitled", 1960  by  Mark Rothko,  with a US$35-50m estimate to benefit the museum's acquisitions fund. The sale will be held in New York in May.

The Museum will use the proceeds to fill gaps in its collection, with a particular focus on work by women and artists of color, areas in which it currently lags behind many of its peers. The sale of Untitled will help “broadly diversify SFMOMA’s collection, enhance its contemporary holdings, and address art-historical gaps in order to continue to push boundaries and embrace fresh ideas,” SFMOMA director Neal Benezra said in a statement.

An important work completed at the peak of Rothko’s career, Untitled, 1960 is one of just 19 paintings completed by the artist in 1960. This year marks a critical juncture in the iconic Abstract Expressionist’s career, following his defining commission of the Seagram Murals (1958-59) and his representation of the United States in the XXIX Venice Biennale (1958) – organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which would subsequently hold Rothko’s first and only major lifetime retrospective in 1961. Untitled, 1960 is distinguished further by its connection to Peggy Guggenheim, preeminent philanthropist and patron of the 20th century.

Untitled, 1960 will travel to London, Taipei and Hong Kong, before returning to New York for exhibition and auction this May.

Valuing your Art and the Appraiser

Zhang Xiaogang’s Bloodline: Big Family No 3. Auctioned at Sotheby’s HK in April 2014 for a hammer price of US$10,698,699

Art like any asset, requires the same respect as that accorded to your other personal assets: your car, your home, or your stamp collection.  Interestingly, as part of the ‘acquisition’ process of these types of assets, insurance becomes part of the overall monetary outlay; you seek the advice of an advisor or broker to ascertain adequate insurance and annual premiums ensue thereafter.  Yet, the same cannot be said for art.

Speak with an insurance broker and you will be surprised to hear how infrequent clients seek the advice of a professional when estimating the value of their art collection; the consequences of not having an up to date valuation, and therefore a current value, can mean the difference between being reimbursed for loss or damage appropriate to its market value or incurring a loss on that initial investment.

Additionally, having an up to date and current value of your collection can also assist in having in place a de-accession strategy; selling too early or too late can result in an unforeseen loss.

Obtaining a professional appraisal of your artwork operates in much the same way as seeking a value for other assets.  Credentials should be assessed; market sector and speciality experience should be examined together with the level of tertiary qualifications and membership with an industry association.

Most importantly, seeking the services of an independent, objective and impartial professional will result in a more accurate valuation, and without the potential bias of a vested interest in the artwork and therefore its value.  Returning to the gallery or dealer from which you first acquired the artwork and seeking an appraisal is clearly a conflict of interest.

Additionally, the quality of the appraisal documentation is equally important: it should demonstrate a solid, up to date appreciation of the market for the subject artist/artwork; present well-reasoned research; provide documentary proof and/or reference to recent auction results and other market indices (ones which are verifiable); and finally, clearly and concisely outline the methodology used for the appraisal.

There are a number of attributes which an experienced appraiser will utilise in order to determine the value of your artwork:

• Authenticity - discernment of a signature, title or date, original sale documentation;

• Quality - consideration of the artist’s period in which the work was executed; composition, palette and technical prowess;

• Rarity - how many works by this artist are available on the open market;

• Limited Edition Prints (if applicable) – the breadth of the edition for the work; available prints in the edition;

• Condition – the archival stability of the work and framing quality, i.e. is the artwork in its original frame?;

• Provenance – probably one of the most crucial factors in the overall valuation process, “provenance” equates with the artwork’s ‘history’, i.e. from artist’s studio to gallery exhibition to auction house sale; and includes discerning any notable non-commercial exhibitions in which the artwork was included, for example, a ‘survey’ exhibition at a regional gallery, in addition to any publications in which the artwork was illustrated or discussed;

• Market – does the artist have an auction record? Sales rates for the artist in either the primary or secondary markets.

Valuing your art necessitates the same respect as valuing your other lifetime assets.  Regular, up to date valuations of your artworks are an important adjunct to the ongoing maintenance and accurate documentation of your collection.

Seeking the advice and services of an experienced and knowledgeable professional is a critical step in the provision of an accurate art appraisal.  Professional art appraisal services offer new and established collectors a comprehensive appreciation of their collection, its current parameters and indeed, future directions.

©Catherine Asquith, January 2019