"Giddy Highs for Contemporary Art" @wsj

[image]Christie's

MASSIVE FLOWERS: Jeff Koons became one of the world's priciest living artists when his metal 'Tulips' sold for $33.6 million, over the $20 million estimate.

To gauge collectors' runaway confidence in the contemporary art market, consider this: A week ago, the world's major auction houses got $447 million from five Impressionist and modern art sales. On Wednesday, Christie's got nearly that much from a single sale of contemporary art.

Values for contemporary art—defined as any art created after 1945—are always in flux because art history hasn't had time to weigh its lasting merits. But the number of high prices attained during New York's fall sales proves newer art still attracts a broad group of competitive global collectors. In the past week alone, Sotheby's BID -1.04%got $75 million for a Mark Rothko abstract and $40.4 million for a Jackson Pollock drip painting. Rival Christie's sold a $43.7 million Andy Warhol silk-screen and a $40.4 million Franz Kline abstract.

As a result, Sotheby's scored its biggest-ever auction on Tuesday with a sale that topped $375 million; Christie's also made history the following night with a $412.2 million sale that represented its second-highest sale in company history after a $491 million blockbuster in 2006. This latest round—which includes a series by smaller auctioneer Phillips de Pury & Co.—concludes Friday. In February, the market will again be tested with a round of sales in London.

Why did collectors sniff at the older offerings but giddily embrace the new? Dealers say the homogenization of international art tastes may have played a role. Colorful abstracts are popular now in part because they don't require the nuanced cultural translations of Chinese scroll paintings or German Expressionist portraits. And at a time when other investment vehicles appear stagnant, collectors see a chance to profit by buying and selling newer artists whose price levels may still be rising.

A closer read of the week's results hints at something else: Collectors are finding ways within the contemporary-art arena to hedge their bets by buying older works created in the 1950s and 1960s by artists who are well-established yet still considered contemporary. Collectors are particularly bidding up the couple dozen artists who found fame right after World War II—including classic Abstract Expressionist painter Franz Kline. The Pennsylvania-born painter, known for splaying thick, feverish brush strokes atop white canvases, was overlooked during the market's last run-up. Now, Asian collectors are bidding him up. They competed heavily for Christie's untitled Kline, which on Wednesday went for $40.4 million, over the estimate. Minutes later, an Asian bidder snagged a smaller Kline from 1955 for $6.4 million, again besting the estimate.

American and European collectors also chased after rare Abstract Expressionist examples by Jackson Pollock and Hans Hofmann. Both painters have long been revered by museums but neither has seen a price spike to rival the kind attained by later favorites like Francis Bacon or Gerhard Richter. Bidders competed heavily for Hofmann's "Swamp" series from the late 1950s, examples of which sold for around $4 million apiece—above their price tags but a bargain compared with similarly candy-colored Richters. Pollock's spattered "Number 4, 1951" finally got its due, selling for $40.4 million, over its $30 million estimate and setting a new auction record for the artist.

Richter snagged a couple big prices this round—Sotheby's got $17.4 million for his "Abstract Painting" from 1990 and Christie's got $15.3 million for another example from 1992—but his momentum appears to be slowing. Several Richters in these sales found no takers, including one offered by Christie's from hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen that stalled at $8.8 million.

Jeff Koons, on the other hand, got a boost when his rainbow-colored bouquet of enormous metal "Tulips" sold for $33.6 million, over the $20 million estimate. The sale gives Mr. Koons bragging rights as the second-priciest living artist after Richter.

But it was Warhol who proved once again why he's the warhorse of contemporary art: Between the houses' regular sales and an auxiliary sale of lower-priced pieces coming directly from his namesake foundation, around 400 Warhols came onto the market last week—and nearly all of them sold. From a $3,500 Polaroid snapshot of red poinsettias to a $16.3 million silk-screen of a man leaping to his death to a $23.7 million reproduction of a Marlon Brando movie still, collectors snapped up a variety pack of Warhols spanning his Pop oeuvre.

On Monday, Christie's inaugural sale of pieces from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts totaled $17 million; a majority of the offerings sold within or above their asking prices. Michael Straus, the foundation's chairman, said the result "proves our strategy was the right thing to do" to raise funds for the foundation's charitable causes.

After Christie's $412.2 million blockbuster two days later, specialist Koji Inoue summed up the contemporary-art market's mood more succinctly: "Talk about a flight to quality."

By Kelly Crow