Sotheby’s
David Hockney’s ‘‘Swimming Pool,’’ painted in 1965, went for £2.5 million at Sotheby’s in London, up from its 2007 price of £1.19 million.LONDON — The market for contemporary art is holding up remarkably well in the midst of the deepening concerns that are engulfing the global economy.
If Sotheby’s sale on Tuesday evening might have left a different impression, it is because brazen speculation no longer flies as easily as it did until recently. The 69 lots of the 79 that came up nonetheless sold quite well, allowing Sotheby’s to post a £69.3 million, or $108 million, score.
The auction house even achieved a world auction record. Glenn Brown’s monumental canvas “The Tragic Conversion of Salvador Dalí (After John Martin)” ascended to £5.19 million, more than two-thirds above expectations. For a picture that has a touch of spoofery about it, this is not bad. As the title indicates, the apocalyptic scenery with fire burning and lava flowing reinterprets John Martin’s “Great Day of His Wrath” done in the late 1840s, and it looks a bit like a movie poster of the 1950s.
Several other works showed that big money continues to pour into contemporary art.
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Warrior,” dated 1982, commanded an even higher price, £5.58 million. But that was under the low estimate, and the difference with Mr. Brown’s painting is that it did not trigger competition.
A glance at the prices previously paid for “Warrior,” done in the late artist’s street graffiti style, helps explain its failure to arouse enthusiasm. Five years ago, it sold for £2.82 million, also at Sotheby’s. Buyers apparently felt that allowing the clever consignor to cash in almost double his 2007 outlay was generous enough.
Earlier in the sale, bidders had been more willing to compete over another composition by Basquiat, “Saxaphone,” painted in 1986, two years before his death. Did they like it better because it is covered with inscriptions? Or were they more tolerant of profit-making when spread over a 15-year period? In 1997, the consignor had bought “Saxaphone” at Sotheby’s New York for $244,500. This week, it fetched £2.72 million, about $4.25 million.
After deduction of the sale charge to the buyer, more than 12 percent, which the auction house cashes in, and of another charge payable by the vendor at a privately negotiated rate, this leaves the consignor a profit of $3 million.
Other clever financial coups were made. David Hockney painted “Swimming Pool” in 1965 in a manner that suggests admiration for Magritte’s faux-naif style with a faint avant-garde whiff. In 2007, its owner, Magnus Künow, acquired the Hockney at Sotheby’s for £1.19 million. This week, it realized £2.5 million.
Francis Bacon’s 1980 “Study for Self-Portrait” also proved to have been a judicious bet. Bought in 2001 at Sotheby’s New York for $2.76 million, the Bacon sold this week for £4.52 million, more than $7 million. From a vendor’s perspective, this is brilliant.
Sadly for Sotheby’s, the sale did not look brilliant at all — quite the contrary, if one merely considered the wild estimate, £5 million to £7 million, plus the sale charge. The attendance glumly watched the Bacon being knocked down to a lone bidder who paid £1 million less than the low estimate.
In this dull atmosphere, the auctioneer Tobias Meyer appeared to be extracting bids from a reticent room when these actually resulted in large prices.
Bidders occasionally displayed some zest. Piero Manzoni’s crumpled canvases coated in white kaolin, with not much else to identify them as art, were vigorously chased. “Achrome,” done in 1959-1960, sold for £2.61 million, matching the ambitious middle estimate.
The problem on Tuesday was not that buyers lacked the wherewithal or the will to spend it. They simply declined to be held to ransom by consignors playing around with estimates and assorted reserves designed to ensure huge profits. If Sotheby’s specialists went along with their vendors’ whims, this means that they had no other way to cajole them into consigning their goods.
Christie’s experienced no such trouble. Its Wednesday evening sale, definitely more substantial, put the market back into perspective. With 60 lots adding up to £132.81 million, Christie’s almost doubled the score achieved by Sotheby’s.
The mood in the room was very different. This was partly because the session included several works seen as hugely desirable by those who follow contemporary art. But the fact that estimates had been set more closely to what the market is prepared to accept played a role in turning the Christie’s session into the success story of the week.
The sale, conducted by Jussy Pylkkanen, president of Christie’s Europe, quickly took off.
The third lot consisted of two fluorescent light tubes by Dan Flavin. It was “number two from an edition of three,” Sotheby’s noted. The fluorescent tubes fetched £205,250, well above the high estimate. Next, a bunch of empty mussel shells spread over a panel coated with resin, plus a “plastic bag filled with mussels,” went up to £433,250. It took the Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaelers eight years to put the finishing touches to his “work,” completed two years before his death in 1976.
A vast canvas inscribed “Cy Twombly, Roma, 1962” came on its heels. Blobs of paint squished out of tubes are crushed at wide intervals on the off-white ground and a few gray lines are trailed across, with no obvious purpose. But Twombly, who died last year, has been reestablished as a blue chip among the postwar artists. The “Untitled” picture realized a price of £2.16 million.
Moments later, a delirious reaction was triggered by Yves Klein’s monumental “Le Rose du Bleu (RE22).” Sponges and gravel are stuck on board, held by synthetic resin painted pink. The French artist executed this work two years before his death in 1962. In order to enlighten viewers who might fail to grasp the meaning of the pink sponges and gravel, Christie’s quoted the late French art critic Pierre Restany, according to whom “madder rose represents the Holy Spirit before the gold of the Father and the blue of the Son.” Restany even spoke of Klein’s “Cosmological Trilogy of personal transmutation of colors.”
What is clear is that the sponges and gravel transmuted into gold: At £23.56 million, the work set a world auction record for the artist.
As the sale went on, it became evident that the key to success was not the artists’ aesthetic orientation. If non-representational works like the Klein soared sky high, so did figural art in all its trends.
Francis Bacon’s “Study for Self-Portrait,” done in 1964 in an Expressionist vein, soared to an astronomical £21.54 million.
An untitled Basquiat done in 1981 in the late American artist’s distinctive style also pleased bidders. They sent it climbing to £12.92 million, setting a world auction record for Basquiat’s work.
While the ease with which the Bacon and the Basquiat both surpassed expectations could be accounted for by their instant punch, the bland, more naturalistic Lucian Freud was again favorably received. A small “Head of a Greek Man,” portrayed in October 1946, exceeded the estimate by half at £3.4 million. It was followed by “Naked Portrait II,” painted in the mid-1970s in a style that might be seen as looking back to the work of Manet. That work went for £4.29 million.
Pop art indebted to comic books as a source of inspiration also went down well. Roy Lichtenstein’s “Reflections on Jessica Helms,” painted in 1990 in a belated throwback to the American artist’s early work in the 1960s, found a taker at £4.01 million.
Add “Structure (2),” a superb abstract composition done in 1989 by the German artist Gerhard Richter, which sold for £12.69 million, the fourth-highest price on Wednesday, and few would question the eclecticism of bidders. Names seemed to be the determining criteria of desirability, sparing buyers the ordeal of having to make a decision based on the art itself. When these criteria were met, money flowed as easily as ever.
The message this week is clear: The market for contemporary art is full of vitality. But buyers will no longer put up with speculators playing games at their expense.
