Mark Rothko - Indian Art News

Bottom falls out of the art market as Manet and Rothko fail to sell

visionsart — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 04:52:00 +0000

Auctioneers feel the chill as sluggish sales and lower prices signal end of a boom
By Arifa Akbar, Arts CorrespondentFriday, 7 November 2008

AP
Fillette sur un Banc, by Edouard Manet, which failed to sell at Christie’s on Wednesday

For so long, the booming art market had appeared impervious to the dipping fortunes of the global economy. But experts now fear the bubble may finally have burst after museum quality paintings by Mark Rothko and Edouard Manet failed to sell at auction. Major sales by Sotheby’s and Christie’s in New York achieved totals that were millions of dollars below even their lowest estimated prices this week.
On Wednesday night, a post-war and contemporary art sale at Christie’s sold half of all the 58 lots at below their expected price, with 30 per cent failing to sell at all. The overall total for the sale was $47m (£38m), well below its estimate of between $100m to $150m.
No43 (Mauve), a painting by Rothko, whose work has set and broken auction records in recent years, failed to sell for between $20m and $30, while multimillion-dollar paintings by Manet did not attract any buyers.
The auction house was last night waiting to see if results of its Impressionist and Modern Art sales would come close to the $240m to $340m estimated total. Marc Porter, Christie’s president, reportedly blamed the “difficult economic climate” for the poor results.
A spokesman offered some reassurance, saying: “People are more considered about what they are going to bid for. There is a difference to the art market but at the same time, considering the scale of what’s been happening in the financial sector, we are still seeing significant amounts of money changing hands and plenty of liquidity and committed bidding.”
Some in the industry suggested the disappointing sales signalled a downturn in the market after a decade of rising prices, and others questioned how much it might plunge.
A Sotheby’s sale on Monday night failed to reach its low estimate of $339m, securing only $223m, with a total of 25 works out of 70 remaining unsold including paintings by Monet, Matisse and Cezanne.
A Sotheby’s statement said the result was not unexpected in the light of the receding economy but that people were still buying. “This was the first true test of our market in this new environment, and what we saw is that the market is clearly alive,” it said. “[The] sale was assembled over the summer and by the time the catalogue came out we were living in a completely different world.”
The auction house said bidding among American buyers had remained strong. Three works had bucked the depressing trend, selling for more than $30m, each establishing a record for the artist at auction: Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematist Composition sold for $60m, the highest for a Russian work of art at auction, Edvard Munch’s Vampire achieved $38m and the Edgar Degas Danseuse Au Repos sold for $37m, also a record for any work on paper ever sold at auction.
The Art Newspaper reported that auction houses were reducing guarantees and lowering reserve prices in the aftermath of weak sales in London and Hong Kong last month. The Wall Street analyst, George Sutton, has predicted entry into “what could be a challenging year for the auction market”.
Ian Peck, the chief executive of the art finance firm, Art Capital Group, said the auction results at Sotheby’s had been a wake-up call to the art world which “firmly demonstrated that the concept of a recession in the art market is not abstract but real. Prices in all categories – the trophies, the great, and the merely good – were less contested, if at all, and end prices were likely reduced by 20 to 40 per cent”.
But Charles Dupplin, from Hiscox art insurers, said it was important to assess the market’s financial health after the week-long auctions in New York as well as the Art Basel Miami Beach art fair in December, a major commercial event in the art industry’s calender. “It’s clearly very tempting to leap to an instant conclusion and there clearly has been a shift in appetite in the market but whether this is realised in prices coming down or not is the real question,” he said.
Art and recession: A brief history
The fortunes of the art market tend, as one might expect, to follow those of the economy. After the heady days of the 1980s, the price of art plunged in the early Nineties. However, it was a very different market from today, with collectors from America, Europe and Japan buying largely with borrowed money. When the Japanese economy faltered, so did the art market. It remained in the doldrums for much of the Nineties, after which it began slowly to rise. A tiny dip in 2000 was followed by a further rise, with some parts of the market, such as contemporary and Russian art, growing quicker than others.
Buyers in the Eighties and Nineties formed a narrow collecting pool. Today, there is a much more global group due to modern communication and online bidding. The growth of economies in India and China might soften any impending crash.

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Oil profits help art market defy gravity

visionsart — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:43:00 +0000

By Eugenia Levenson

Is there a bubble in the art market? Sales of high-end works defy expectations amid an expanding pool of oil-rich buyers.

NEW YORK (Fortune) — Luxury these days is a tale of two markets: consumers continue to snap up high-priced Louis Vuitton bags even as they balk at paying full price for Coach handbags. The same can be said of demand for works of art.
Recent auctions of high-end art on both sides of the Atlantic have been a huge success. The sales, fueled in part by rich oil barons, have defied expectations that a shaky global economy would curb demand.
In London, works by Claude Monet and Jeff Koons fetched stratospheric prices, with Monet’s water lilies masterpiece, “Le Bassin aux Nympheas” selling for $80.5 million last week – well above its $47 million high estimate. In May, Francis Bacon’s “Triptych, 1976” set the record for most expensive contemporary work at auction when it sold for $86.3 million at Sotheby’s in New York.
Trendy categories like post-WWII and contemporary art have seen triple-digit price gains since 2002, but the boom was supposed to end after the credit crisis hit last summer. Instead, buoyant sales are just the latest example of a market that seems impervious to the downturn driven by climbing oil prices, a floundering financial sector, and a looming U.S. recession.
One reason the auctions are still buzzing is the influx of commodity-rich buyers who chase trophy works and push prices to ever-loftier heights. Roman Abramovich, a London-based Russian oligarch, reportedly bought two of the top works at the New York sales in May: the $86.3 million Bacon triptych and Lucien Freud’s “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping,” which sold for $33.6 million, making Freud the priciest living artist.
Meanwhile, the Al-Thani family of Qatar was the reported buyer last year of Mark Rothko’s “White Center (Yellow, Pink, and Lavender on Rose)” for $72.8 million. It was the highest price for a post-war work sold at auction at the time – a title now held by Bacon’s “Triptych.”
Signs of softness
This trophy-lot frenzy, however, has obscured some underlying weakness.
“We have two markets going on,” says Ian Peck, CEO of New York-based Art Capital Group, which provides financing against art assets. “There’s the super-rich market, which is very active right now. Then there’s the middle market, which is soft and patchy.”
According to research firm ArtTactic, works priced at more than $1 million made up about 70% of the contemporary art auction volume this year. Lower-priced pieces, which are offered by the auction houses at day sales rather than at the high-profile evening auctions, were more likely to sell below their top estimates or to fail to sell.
This softness shows that middle-market buyers are balking at rapidly escalating prices. For example, this week Christie’s featured six works by Damien Hirst at its day sale in London. Two didn’t sell, including a medicine cabinet that was estimated at $690,000 to $880,000. In its last auction four years ago, the Hirst piece fetched $212,000, nearly three times its top estimate.
The high-end market, on the other hand, has been resilient thanks to a buyer’s pool that is bigger and more global than ever. As recently as the late 1980s – when Japanese buyers bid up Impressionist art – American and European collectors were the only other major players, says Olivier Camu of Christie’s in London. When the Japanese economy faltered, so did the art market, and prices fell precipitously in the early 1990s.
“The reason the market is doing so well is because it’s so much deeper and broader,” says Camu. Big bidders now also hail from the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and Asia.
With growing demand for a limited supply, quality has been able to command record prices. The $80.5 million Monet, for example, was a rare masterpiece in top condition whose companion paintings are in museum or private collections or, in one instance, damaged.
Still, observers question whether even the trophy-art market can continue to soar as economic conditions deteriorate. “We think if there is a shift it could happen quickly,” says Peck. “It would take one or two major pieces to do poorly, and that could trigger a chain reaction. It’s a very neurotic sort of market.”

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Is Bacon in more demand than Picasso?

visionsart — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:45:00 +0000

AS Sotheby’s and Christie’s gear up for their famously extravagant summer contemporary art sales, the mood is mixed.
Last October’s evening sales at Christie’s saw earnings of £34.87m for the auction house and the art world was paddling about in a Frieze-Week sea of champagne; last June the credit crunch was a distant rumour and the sales at Sotheby’s made £72.43m.
Now, despite the credit crunch, experts at the two auction houses maintain that the market is stronger than ever — indeed, the February 2008 Contemporary Evening sale made Sotheby’s a whopping £95m. The sales are strongly blue-chip (roughly 90 per cent), with work by Britons Gilbert & George, Tracey Emin and Anthony Gormley, and Americans Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol, among others.
Both houses have got their hands on paintings by Francis Bacon, the most sought-after artist on the market at the moment. Christie’s has Three Studies For A Self-Portrait, the first time the work has been seen at auction. Sotheby’s has been trumpeting its Study For Head Of George Dyer for weeks — so hot is this haunting, enigmatic portrait set against a solid green background, that the catalogue says the price estimate is only available on request. Figure Turning from 1962 should go for between £10m and £15m at Sotheby’s.
Of the Baconian frenzy, Oliver Barker, head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s, says: “In many people’s minds, Bacon is now surpassing Picasso. A Bacon is a very strong blue chip.”
Other dynamite lots are Jeff Koons’s Balloon Flower (Magenta), at Christie’s, an enormous sculpture based on a balloon twisted into the shape of a purple-pink wide open bloom which has been on view in St James’s Square.It’s estimated to go for in the region of £12m.
At Sotheby’s is Richard Prince’s Overseas Nurse, from his sexy, grimy Nurses series (estimated at £4m to 6m And Chant 2, the first pure colour painting by British artist Bridget Riley to come to market, is estimated at £2m to £3m.
German post-war artists are well represented. Frank Auerbach, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and sculptor Bruce Nauman are all for sale at high prices — estimates for Richter go up to £3m at Christie’s for his sombre, abstract Kleine Strasse. But despite the dizzying figures, it’s worth remembering that, as yet, nobody has paid them.
The positive spin churned out by the big houses at sales time should be taken with a very large pinch of salt; for example, results from the recent Russian sales were mixed at best, despite glowing tributes from Sotheby’s and Christie’s. As the record-breaking February figures show, it does seem that contemporary art operates independently of economic cycles.
It may seem contrary to the spirit of the times, but collectors are seizing the opportunity to sell to a keen market. Barker adds: “The mood is very good. Yes, there’s a credit crunch, but there’s also a lot of wealth in the world.”
And he says supply has never been better in contemporary art: “There is a steady flow of fresh works coming to the market and great opportunities for collectors putting together superb portfolios.”
One reason is the increasing globalisation of the art world — artists from hitherto less-known areas are being noticed, too. “Indian and Iranian art has become more collectible,” Barker says. “This is the first time we’re selling it so prominently — there’s a growing demand in terms of interest and collectors.”
The highlight at Christie’s is La Terre, 1973, by Syed Haider Raza (estimate: £1m-£1.5m), one of India’s leading modern artists and a member of the revolutionary Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group.
Sotheby’s has an untitled paining of kettles and drums with Pop Art pinks and black-edged greys by Subodh Gupta. Although it doesn’t immediately betray Gupta’s origins, he has portrayed the shining steel objects traditionally found in the trousseaux of newly married Indian women. It is expected to sell for between £200,000 and £300,000.
Unlike recent contemporary sales, there are scant Chinese works for sale — the run on the market for 1990s Chinese art has drastically diminished supply. Sotheby’s has just one; a Zhang Xiaogang portrait called Brother And Sister (£400,000-£600,000).
Christie’s has a similar but more expensive Zhang: Father And Daughter, estimated at £900,000 to £1,500,000. For now, it looks like the contemporary art market has evaded the economic storms.
But there is a hint of uncertainty: “We’re not leaving any stones unturned in looking for potential buyers,” Barker admits. “Even if we get to our low estimate, we’ll be happy; these are very high low estimates.”
Whatever happens, the contemporary art circus is coming to town next week, and it’s bound to be colourful.

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