Art-packed NY auctions may cross $1bn mark
With auction estimates projected to break a billion dollars, the New York art market swings into what is poised to be the biggest selling season in history.
By Agencies |
NEW YORK: With auction estimates projected to break a billion dollars, the New York art market swings into what is poised to be the biggest selling season in history. Major works by Gauguin, Modigliani and Warhol are expected to draw scores of deep-pocket buyers. Sotheby’s and Christie’s impressionist, modern-art and contemporary-art auctions begin November 7 and run through November 16.
Sales for a similar stretch tallied $725.6m a year ago. Historically, art has arrived on the auction block courtesy of the three Ds: death, divorce or disaster. Not so this season, when “discretionary selling” has become the norm.
“People think it’s a good time to sell,” said New York art dealer David Nash. “The prices things have sold for over the past three to four sale seasons are very encouraging for people to put their works on the market.” The auction houses also say that the buying pool has grown. Russian billionaires, Asian collectors and a recent influx of hedge-fund managers are all vying with traditional American and European collectors.
“Our bidder lists are more diverse than ever before,” said David Norman, head of Sotheby’s impressionist and modern art department. “You almost wonder what currencies to put on the board,” he said, referring to the large electronic displays in sale rooms that convert bid prices into various denominations.
The largest single auction total was reached in May 1990 at Sotheby’s New York, when an evening sale of impressionist and modern artworks totalled $286m. (The following year the art market tumbled). Christie’s November 8 sale of impressionist and modern art is expected to fetch from $338m to $488m, a big jump from last year’s November total of $160.9m and significantly more than the record.
Many are taking advantage of the soaring market to cash out. High-profile sellers include composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, dealer William Acquavella, Ronald S Lauder’s Neue Galerie and actor Sean Connery. “People are taking a profit,” said Michael Findlay, director of Acquavella Galleries.
“The sellers have decided that whatever is going to happen next is enough for them. If the market softens, it will appear to have been very smart. I think they are selling because they have looked at levels and the levels are healthy.” The result is that auction houses are flush with all kinds of material, grades A, B and even D.
Highlights include composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Blue Period Picasso, Portrait de Angel Fernandez de Soto (1903), showing a debonair lad sipping absinthe. Lloyd Webber bought the painting at Sotheby’s New York in 1995 for $29.1m, and it is now estimated to sell at Christie’s on November 8 for $40m to $60m.
New York dealer Acquavella has decided the time is right to sell Nature morte aux fruits et pot de gingembre, a brushy Cezanne still life (about 1895) that he bought at Christie’s London in ’00 for $18.2m. The work is now expected to sell for $28m to $35m at Sotheby’s on November 7.
Connery is parting with five pieces, including a 6-by-9-inch Picasso still life purchased at Sotheby’s New York in ’02 for $245,500. It is now expected to fetch as much as $450,000.
Sales for a similar stretch tallied $725.6m a year ago. Historically, art has arrived on the auction block courtesy of the three Ds: death, divorce or disaster. Not so this season, when “discretionary selling” has become the norm.
“People think it’s a good time to sell,” said New York art dealer David Nash. “The prices things have sold for over the past three to four sale seasons are very encouraging for people to put their works on the market.” The auction houses also say that the buying pool has grown. Russian billionaires, Asian collectors and a recent influx of hedge-fund managers are all vying with traditional American and European collectors.
“Our bidder lists are more diverse than ever before,” said David Norman, head of Sotheby’s impressionist and modern art department. “You almost wonder what currencies to put on the board,” he said, referring to the large electronic displays in sale rooms that convert bid prices into various denominations.
The largest single auction total was reached in May 1990 at Sotheby’s New York, when an evening sale of impressionist and modern artworks totalled $286m. (The following year the art market tumbled). Christie’s November 8 sale of impressionist and modern art is expected to fetch from $338m to $488m, a big jump from last year’s November total of $160.9m and significantly more than the record.
Many are taking advantage of the soaring market to cash out. High-profile sellers include composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, dealer William Acquavella, Ronald S Lauder’s Neue Galerie and actor Sean Connery. “People are taking a profit,” said Michael Findlay, director of Acquavella Galleries.
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“The sellers have decided that whatever is going to happen next is enough for them. If the market softens, it will appear to have been very smart. I think they are selling because they have looked at levels and the levels are healthy.” The result is that auction houses are flush with all kinds of material, grades A, B and even D.
Highlights include composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Blue Period Picasso, Portrait de Angel Fernandez de Soto (1903), showing a debonair lad sipping absinthe. Lloyd Webber bought the painting at Sotheby’s New York in 1995 for $29.1m, and it is now estimated to sell at Christie’s on November 8 for $40m to $60m.
New York dealer Acquavella has decided the time is right to sell Nature morte aux fruits et pot de gingembre, a brushy Cezanne still life (about 1895) that he bought at Christie’s London in ’00 for $18.2m. The work is now expected to sell for $28m to $35m at Sotheby’s on November 7.
Connery is parting with five pieces, including a 6-by-9-inch Picasso still life purchased at Sotheby’s New York in ’02 for $245,500. It is now expected to fetch as much as $450,000.
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