Changing Environments in the Global Art Market

Grace Harlow, MA

Associate Fine Art Appraiser

During a lecture on the changing environments of the global art market, Evan Beard, a National Art Services Executive with the U.S. Trust, shared an interesting statistic: 60% of lots offered in this past weeks contemporary evening sales at Christie's and Sotheby's were backed by guarantees. 

The statistic is at first surprising considering that the use of such a practice, where auction houses or a third-party will offer sellers a guaranteed minimum price for an artwork to entice consignments, is a relatively new and sometimes controversial strategy.  

However, the increasing use of and reliance on guarantees perhaps highlights the sizeable shift in collecting practices and motivation within the fine art market. 

For years connoisseurs and aesthetes, who spent considerable time training their eye to discern quality and purchased art for emotional and aesthetic reasons, dominated the collecting industry. Now, Beard suggests that these individuals are increasingly superseded by trophy hunters and enterprising collectors, who purchase works from in-demand artists and quickly resell them at a hoped-for substantial profit or amass large collections that are then exhibited in purpose-built museums (Eli Broad and Christian Boros come to mind). 

The rise of so-called 'art flippers,' private billionaire art museums, and third-party guarantors speaks to the increased overall global wealth and can be possibly explained by a phenomenon known as 'the wealth effect,' where individuals with expansive disposable income are spending more money as their assets increase. 

It seems that collectors are becoming more conscious of art not only for its aesthetic return but also its financial possibilities as an investment tool. Where previously there was no real emphasis on art banking, now the U.S. Trust currently holds around thirteen billion dollars from art lending according to Mr. Beard. Art is no longer just a form of social and cultural capital but now functions as a form of currency used to unlock capital. 

The shift in importance from asthetic to more financial concerns within the art market is important for appraisers to understand. Collectors now operate under a different psychology with a new set of motivations. Being aware not only of cghanging market conditions and trends, but the reasons why these evolutions occur will allow appraisers to better communicate and ultimately manage their clients' expectations. 

Notes from the President: The Secondary Market Then and Now

Dr. Elin Lake-Ewald

Ph.D., ASA, FRICS

Each of us finds a way to relax during fall’s frantic art weeks; some eat, some drink, some watch Netflix, some go to the movies, some do what some like to do. I retreat into the past.

Just now I reached blindly into the cabinet in my office with annual auction catalogs. Sotheby’s "Review of 1961-62" and Christie’s “Review of the Year 1962-63” came into my hands. What was happening well over 50 years ago in the art world? These would be all non-American sales.

Sotheby’s London sold Honore Daumier’s "Third Class Carriage," an iconic image, for just a trifle over $100,000. The approximately 10 x 13-inch painting on panel was from the Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Anson Beard of New York. In the upcoming sale at Sotheby’s New York this week there is an approximately 8 x 8-inch ink, ink wash and conte crayon drawing, "Avant l'audience," from the Collection of Samuel & Ethel Lefrak that is estimated at $100-150,000.

Years ago it was sometimes estimated that the ratio of the value of painting to drawing by the same artist was 4 to 1. Anyway, that’s no longer relevant since it has been 55 years hence and the drawing of two kneeling figures that might have been valued between $2,000 -3,000 in 1961.

A figure on square steps by Henry, 7 ¼ x 9 ¼, bronze, was auctioned off at Christie’s in 62-63 for $7,000 back then, while in the upcoming sale a smaller seated mother and child, 5 1/4 in height, is estimated (again) for $100-150,000.  Both are editioned pieces.

And look what one could get at Christie’s in those years for well under $3,000; a giltwood & inlaid tortoiseshell center table, 57 inches wide x 34 ½ deep, purchased by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for $2,793.

At first glance, I thought the André Derain “Pool of  London” Fauvist watercolor and bodycolor had sold for $12 million, but of course, that couldn’t have been true, not then. The about 20 x 20 signed work actually received $12,632 – that’s thousands – at Christie's.

"The Pool of London," André Derain

During 1962-63 Christie’s total sales were $10,500,000, a relatively dramatic increase of $700,000 over the previous year. It was noted in the catalog that there had been a noted shortage of Old Master paintings indicating that the collectors’ funds had increased for what was available.In that year’s drawing sale a caricature of an old man by Leonardo da Vinci, 4 ¼ x 4 ¼, brought $42,630, while Tintoretto’s “Christ at the Pool of Bethesda" sold for $122,735. That was really big money in that era.

Sotheby’s catalog spent many paragraphs discussing the stability of the art market at this time, citing the fact that the art market used to react immediately to stock market, movements, either up or down, but this year it appeared not to have happened. Consignments from the U.S. seemed to help. One, Amedeo Modigliani’s “L’Homme Au Verre De Vin,” painted circa 1918 and about 36 x 21 realized $103,000. I could not help but note that not all work did as well as the auctioneer insisted. Henri Matisse’s "Femme a l’Ombrelle Verte," a beautiful work from 1920, Nice, and from the Collection of W. Somerset Maugham, Esq., 27 x 22, brought only $89,600.

It is a little disconcerting to rifle through these old catalogs and see the magnificent works available in those days, knowing the current prices for works half as fine. I don’t know why I wrote that it was relaxing. It isn’t at all.

Christie's Post-War & Contemporary Auction Preview

Edward Orlowski, MA 

Associate Fine Art Appraiser

At the auction house contemporary viewings over the weekend there were some strong lots – available to those willing and able to pay. It will be interesting to see if some of the high prices will scare off buyers in this increasingly uncertain market.

One star lot was Mark Rothko’s Saffron from 1957,  a pivotal year. With fields of deep ochres and blood orange and a satisfying off-white stripe cutting across the center, the work held an incredible presence placed at the end of a hall, pulling you into it like a vortex. It’s  69 x 53.75, estimated at a modest $25 – 35 million.

Not to be missed is Calder’s Calderoulette, created from brass, wire, and thread, a whimsical construction of butterflies and bumblebees of twisted wire that demonstrates the artist’s engineering and jewelry-making skills. From 1941, it is estimated at $3.2 – 3.8 million.

Also on view in a shrine-like invention were three Philip Guston paintings that paid homage to his representative work of the 60s and early 70s, with price ranges in the mid-six figures.

Of course, I must mention Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi because I found it somewhat disturbing when viewed it at Christie’s. This is particularly the case of certain apparently overcleaned areas of the work, and the figure’s seemingly flattened chest, as well as the superficiality of the ringlets of hair.

It is difficult to be displeased by any work to which Leonardo’s hand has been applied, so it will be interesting to see who the ultimate purchaser is – a museum or a private collector. That may tell us something.

Exploring the Outsider Art Fair

Gaela Fernandez, Creative Growth Gallery

Whoever missed the Outsider Art Show this year missed a lot of fun. Lots of interest and enthusiasm shown on the faces of fairgoers. Not used to seeing so much courtesy and information provided by dealers speaking with people I was pretty sure were interested but not able to buy the often expensive art on the walls. I saw one dealer giving a lot of time to students who were taking notes while a couple of well-heeled potential clients cooled their heels in her booth.  Maybe it wasn’t good business, but I liked what I saw.

 There were two notable things about the exhibition. One was the very high quality of the offerings and the other was steadily rising prices. Outsider art has moved into the big time, although the highest price I found was the $260,000 for a Martin Ramirez graphite, tempera and crayon drawing on paper, 48 x 36 inches.  AT Creative Growth Gallery, Oakland, California, there was a Judith Scott ball of twine priced at $50,000. (Currently Scott has a show at the Brooklyn Museum curated by Catherine Morris, an OTE alum). The photo, seen left, is of the woolly ball and Gaela Fernandez, the gallery’s Paris representative. Almost as much as the $60,000 asked for a Henry Darger mixed media work on paper, 8.5 x 11.75 inches from 1950, depicting a fierce looking military man.

 At Marion Harris the strange photos of dolls who are posed as children, and who look like children, by Morton Bartlett, are priced in the $22,000 range. Can I say I enjoy them but at the same time they creep me out? Well, I just did.

 What did I think was the most exceptional work in the show? Since I think it may be the closest to fine art, albeit by an untrained artist (although trained as a draftsman), the extraordinary living buildings by A.G. Rizzoli struck me as most memorable. “A Building with Mr.and Mrs. Harold Healy Symbolically Sketched” from 1937, revealed how one artist’s thinking process worked. He apparently loved the Healys because he made their elegant lofty twin towers very beautiful, while their unliked cousin was a square concrete box, and a rambunctious 3-year-old became his own structure. The artist predicted the rambunctious boy would become mayor when he grew up. While  the kid never made it he did actually run for the office as an adult. Bonnie Grossman, the director of The Ames Gallery in Berkeley, California, (see below) stands in front of one of Rizzoli’s great buildings. While this one is priced at $92,000, there are a number of smaller drawings that are in the $2,000 range.

Bonnie Grossman, The Ames Gallery

 I’ve always like the work of the mysterious Gayleen Aiken at Luise Ross Gallery, her depiction of her imaginery family, all carefully named and described in detail, have always fascinated me, and their prices, $8,000 and $12,000, seem within reason for a true outsider artist.

 All in all, a show that should not have been missed by anyone who enjoys the art of the unknown by the untrained.

Opening Night at the IFPDA Print Fair 2014

Opening night at the Print Fair brought crushing crowds and some amazing power on paper!

 A growing market for early 20th century British printmakers seemed to grow exponentially as several dealer booths focused on displays by Sybil Andrews, CRW Nevinson, Claude Flight, Margaret Barnard, Cyril Edward Power, and Lill Tschude, much admired but scarcely known in the US. Prices ranged from the low $30,000s to over $100,000, so it’s clear that there is as strong market for these vigorously colored linocuts. Kempner Gallery appeared to have the largest selection.

 Equally striking, but in the most subtle of ways, was an unusual series of eight silkscreens by Fred Sandbeck priced at $25,000. Famed for his string sculptures, these prints showed the varied configurations of a structure of strings as if it were in motion. At Diane Villani, publisher.

 At Barbara Krakow was another series of nine geometric black and white silkscreens from a set of ten (I still can’t figure that out), by Sol Lewitt, from 1982, and also priced at $25,000.

 So much to see and so much to remember, but two prints whose images remain with me: an engraving by William Black of Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrimage for $60,000 at the Fine Art Society of London, and at Hill-Stone an etching of Death and the Knight, a beautiful impression, for $225,000.

 This year may have brought in the largest group of non-American dealers that I can remember, and certainly a great number of non-New York dealers, a good many from Chicago. Definitely a sense of energy and excitement prevailed, but the increase in prices for prints was discernible. Perhaps, at any price, prints can be made to seem like near giveaways in the light of the  prices at the auction sales currently going on.

Written by Elin Lake-Ewald, Ph.D, ASA, FRICS