D+H’s Australian Aboriginal Art Auction Defies Virus Covid-19 Fears with 100% Sold by Value

Image: Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Desert Winter, 1994. Courtesy: Deutscher & Hackett

Notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s announcement on 18th March banning indoor gatherings of 100 people Deutscher & Hackett’s first auction for the year, the much anticipated “Important Australian Aboriginal Art” auction, defied the odds, and witnessed spirited bidding from local and international collectors to achieve a total of A$2.3m in sales.  Selling at 100% by value and in excess of 80% by volume, the results were impressive, and several artists achieving new records.

Top 3 Prices (incl BP) from the night:

LOT 8    EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE, Desert Winter, 1994, $317,200

LOT 9    EMILY KAME KNGWARREYE, A Desert Life Cycle III, 1991, $170,800

LOT 23  PADDY BEDFORD, Jinanggany – Cattle Creek, 2004, $128,100

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

Art Fair: Taipei Dangdai 2019

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Haegue Yang, Sol LeWitt Upside Down onto Wall – Cubic-Modular Wall Structure, Black, Expanded 11 Times, 2018, Aluminum venetian blinds, powder-coated aluminum hanging structure, steel wire rope, LED tubes, cable, 305 x 304 x 104 cm. Image: Courtesy of Kukje Gallery, Seoul.

Taipei Dangdai is a new international art fair commencing 18tth January 2019. 

A joint venture between Single Market Events (Tim Etchell), ARTHQ / EVENTS Limited, Ramsay Fairs Limited and Angus Montgomery Limited, the Fair’s rationale is to celebrate the city’s unique and dynamic arts scene, while highlighting global creativity and the increasing importance of the wider art market in Asia.

Fair Director, Magnus Renfrew believes now is the right time to launch an international art fair in Taipei: “Galleries are increasingly taking Asia seriously, and are looking for more than one opportunity to engage with the region’s collectors each year. For a long time, galleries that show at Art Basel have also cited Taiwanese collectors as being the most instrumental in determining the success of their participation”. 

Renfrew’s vision reflects the tenor of the word “Dangdai”, meaning ‘now’ or ‘of the present moment’:  “I hope that the fair will, appropriately, be something of a ‘moment’ for Taipei — creating an opportunity to showcase its strengths to a much wider audience, while also providing collectors, buyers and local audiences with an opportunity to engage with leading galleries from Asia and around the world on their doorstep, and on their terms. There hasn’t really been a fair of this quality before, with such a strong exhibitor line-up.”

Presented by UBS, the event brings together a selection of the world’s leading galleries and artists alongside influential thinkers from a wide range of disciplines, including archaeology, art history and technology.

The market for Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi, Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1615–17. © The National Gallery, London. Courtesy of The National Gallery, London.

Artemisia Gentileschi, (1593 – c.1656), was an Italian Baroque painter, whose oeuvre focussed on mostly, female allegorical subjects, depicting powerful figures during moments of highly emotive, sometimes violent points in history.  Unusually, she managed to enjoy significant success during her lifetime and was well-respected by her peers and the arts community, and was the first woman to be accepted into the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence.  Today she is considered one of the most accomplished painters of her generation.

Artemisia Gentileschi, Lucretia, ca. 1630–45. © Dorotheum.

The market for Gentileschi has witnessed a burgeoning interest in her work; in July of this year, her extraordinary painting, “Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria” (ca. 1615-17) was acquired by the National Gallery of London.  This week, her work “Lucretia” sold for €1.8m at Dorotheum in Vienna, and is headed to an Australian collection.  Additionally, Gentileschi’s inclusion in Ghent’s Museum of Fine Art’s exhibition on Baroque female painters (on now) suggests a recalibration of Western Art History’s canon to include more female artists.

In the wider arena, social media is highlighting some of her works, as a means of expressing discontent and alignment with social commentary, with “Judith Slaying Holofernes” (ca. 1620) going viral during the hearings leading up to the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U S Supreme Court.  This painting is perhaps especially poignant – the subject being Judith’s act of a confident, yet bloody vengeance – given the fact that Gentileschi was a survivor of sexual assault and indeed, did take her attacker to court.

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and Holofernes, ca. 1620, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

According to some arts commentators, the market has been slow to catch up with art historians: Gentileschi was first re-examined in the 1947 novel by art historian Anna Banti’s “Artemesia”.  Some four decades later, feminism took an interest, with Mary Garrad’s influential 1989 text, “Artemesia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Here in Italian Baroque Art”.   It was not until 2014, when the work, “Mary Magdalene” sold for over USD1m (Sotheby’s, Paris), establishing a new record for the artist, that the market’s attention was piqued.

For some pundits, Gentileschi is “having a moment”, following on from a renewed interest in Old Masters; others view the interest as a type of ‘inter-disciplinary’ approach by dealers and art fairs – the confluence of contemporary and Old Masters artworks in fair booths and curated exhibitions; or perhaps the result of contemporary artists utilising and highlighting their sources and historical artworks in new work.

Nevertheless, there can be no denying the importance of addressing the deficit in museum and gallery collections across the globe of the inclusion of significant female artists’ work.

Zhang Xiaogang headlines Phillips' Hong Kong Auction

Phillips Hong Kong sale on May 27th will feature a $5m collection of Chinese Contemporary art entitled Pioneers of Modernism: A Selection from the Scheeres Collection. The lead lot is a Zhang Xiaogang work, Bloodline, Big Family No. 9 (above) that comes to market with an estimate upon request. Another work from this same series sold in China five months ago for $4.4m for a much later work. The record for these Big Family works and the artist is slightly more than $12m achieved in 2014.

Comprising 20 lots estimated in excess of HKD 40 million, the collection include historically significant contemporary Chinese works by celebrated artists such as Zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, as well as such modern masters as Richard Lin, Sanyu, Le Pho, among others.  The highlights will be unveiled in a touring exhibition across key cities in Asia .  

onouring its debut appearance in the market, Pioneers of Modernism: A Selection from the Scheeres Collection will be presented in a dedicated auction preview in H Queen’s Atrium in Hong Kong from 24 to 27 May 2018 alongside Phillips Hong Kong’s Spring Sale 2018 preview held in Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong.

Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2017

The parameters of Abu Dhabi Art extends beyond the notion of a traditional art fair; its diverse public engagement programme, ranging from art installations and exhibitions, talks and events, takes place in different locations, throughout the year. The culmination of this year-long programme is the Abu Dhabi Art event in November, which provides the sales platform for participating local and international galleries and an audience of over 20,000 visitors.

Making use of the natural landscape of the region, the Fair’s designer, Nilsson Pflugfelder conceptualised the elements of an art fair as an ‘archipelago’: each entity is conceived as an autonomous island that, together, makes up Abu Dhabi Art in the form of an archipelago. Consisting of ubiquitous 450 x 450 x 450 mm open cubes, the various islands are, within the exhibition, conceived as modular intensities of programmatic content.  The aim is to suggest the conscious reconnecting of ideas across an archipelago of time, forming narratives with past eras of utopian interventions.

The Fair’s curatorial programme aims to present a unique iteration, transforming the concept of an art fair to a place of discovery and discourse. The curated series of exhibitions and programme will bring diverse perspectives on global trends to an inspiring schedule of cultural engagement, reflecting the exceptional calibre of contemporary cultural practice for which Abu Dhabi Art is renowned.

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