Encouraging Signs?

[sleepboy]

From Financial Times.

Predictions of an art market meltdown were confounded in London this week as six sales of impressionist, modern and contemporary art at Christie's and Sotheby's turned in solid results.

The auction houses managed to restore confidence to a jittery market with successful sales by radically shrinking the size of the cata-logue and lowering estimates compared with last year. Some distress selling is, however, beginning to filter through.

Among the week's highlights were a classic impressionist painting by Monet that fetched £11.2m, a Degas sculpture that sold for £13.3m and a carved stack of cartoon-like animals by Jeff Koons that made £2.8m. The day sales, which offer more moderately priced works, also proved successful.

"We feel a lot better than we did a week ago," said James Roundell, a London dealer. "At best, people thought the sales would be patchy. These results send a positive message to the market."

Sotheby's two sales of impressionist and modern art this week totalled £43.9m, compared with the £144.4m it garnered in February last year. Christie's three sales made £82.5m; last year they fetched £136.5m. Sotheby's pared-down auction of contemporary art this week made £17.9m, with just two of the 27 lots remaining unsold. Last year the same sale made a record-breaking £95m.

While distress selling is starting to appear in the market, few works could be positively identified as having come from collectors hit by the global financial crisis. At Sotheby's, Jerome Fisher, the art collector and owner of Nine West shoes who reportedly lost large sums through investments with Bernard Madoff, is believed to have been the consignor of a large Degas pastel showing two dancers, estimated at £3.5m-£4.5m. The painting attracted no bids and went unsold at £2.9m.

At Christie's, five works came from a buyer who had failed to pay after winning them in February last year. They returned to the saleroom this week, incurring a big loss for the vendor. The most expensive, Alexej von Jawlensky's expressionist portrait of a sulky girl, "Mädchen mit roter Schliefe" (1911), was the cover lot for Christie's catalogue last year when it sold to a "private European" for £2.9m. This time it sold for £1.9m. More moderate losses hit Kandinsky's colourful watercolour of psychologist Poul Bjerre in a Swedish landscape, which sold for £433,250 - the buyer had paid £670,100 for it last year. A Sisley riverscape bought last year for £446,100 sold for £385,250 this week.

While estimates and prices have dropped sharply in the art market, a few vendors still turned a profit. The Degas "Petite danseuse de quatorze ans" (cast in 1922) consigned by Sir John Madejski, Reading football club's owner, made £13.3m at Sotheby's - he bought it in February 2004 for just over £5m. The sculpture went to a Japanese buyer benefiting from the strong yen, which has gained 35 per cent against the pound over the past year. The Koons sculpture, "Stacked" (1988), which made £2.8m at Sotheby's on Thursday, had been bought in 1997 for $250,000 by Richard Cooper, a Chicago collector.

[richardtharbaugh]

Shoot, have that translate into the job market, commercial property market, residential property market, and consumer confidence level... And I'll feel pretty good about things!

Thanks for the article, HH.

[sleepboy]

Feb 8, 2009 13:48:45 GMT -8 @richardtharbaugh said:

Shoot, have that translate into the job market, commercial property market, residential property market, and consumer confidence level... And I'll feel pretty good about things!

Thanks for the article, HH.

Yes, I always though the art market recovers after the general market. Perhaps just some rich people taking advantage of bargains. Most of the collectors I have talked to are still hesitant in spending their money. We will see if this is a temporary blip.

[svenman]

.... but don't you guys think that articles like this with news about the 'highbrow' (for want of a better word) contemporary art market has next to nothing to do with the sub-scene that we collect within?
we are talking about high rollers here. museum collections etc.
i don't think that this has any real relevance to us as collectors.

what i do think is that in these hard times (i've i've been hard hit too - out of work for 3 months), its important to support our scene and support the artists out there that are still making the work, and in some cases struggling like hell. if we all take the attitude that we're not buying because sotherbys and christies only turned in 40 gazillion this week then our artists will suffer further.

i buy for my enjoyment of the art, and not for whether the rest of the market is buying or not. times are hard, but this is still my hobby and i'm happy to be a patron of the arts at the time when artists need that patronage the most.

here's a request to everyone...if you can afford to do it this month, go and buy a print or a piece or original art from an artist (in particular an emerging artist) that you admire. you'll be showing your support of the artist community at large at a time when they need your support the most.

[virtu]

Well said Svenman!
Fat Cat's spending their Tax Payer Bail Out Money more than likely.

Iv been going thru my old Art Gallery Links this week and was shocked to see about a 1/4 of the lowbrow galleries gone.

[commandax]

here's a request to everyone...if you can afford to do it this month, go and buy a print or a piece or original art from an artist (in particular an emerging artist) that you admire. you'll be showing your support of the artist community at large at a time when they need your support the most.

Seconded... The younger artists, in particular, are feeling the pinch right now and need any support we can give them. If people like us aren't willing to support the artists we love in whatever way we can, many of them will have to give up making art in order to feed themselves, and I know none of us want that to happen.