Reflecting the lower prices for contemporary art brought on by the recession, there are some relative bargains to be had at Christie's Post-War & Contemporary Art auction in London on June 30. Chief among them is Jean-Michel Basquiat's Red Skull (above), painted in 1982 and estimated at only $2.4 million - $3.2 million. Other potential steals include Richard Prince's Country Nurse, est. at $2.4 million - $3.2 million; Jeff Koons' Moustache, est. at $1.9 million- $2.8 million; Francis Bacon's Study for Portrait, est. at $1.2 million - $1.9 million; and Andy Warhol's Self-Portrait, est. at only $800,000 - $1.2 million. The results will no doubt be closely monitored by art world insiders.

If you can't make it to "Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York this month you can still enjoy the great painter's works courtesy of art book imprint Skira Rizzoli. Francis Bacon, a comprehensive study of the seminal 20th-century painter (and oligarch favorite) "provides a radical reassessment of his major achievements and his enduring importance for the twenty-first century."

Bacon developed a way of portraying the human body that was unique in the history of painting - "usually in isolation, at moments of extreme tension or even pain, his figures distorted as if in a fantastical nightmare," as the authors note. In addition to 250 full-color plates, the book also reveals Bacon's inspirations, including magazine tear sheets, photographs, and imagery from films. The book, which will be published later this month, is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

Art auction houses are looking to protect themselves. Lacking a local "enforcer" to find once eager collectors and shake them down for every last dollar, the likes of Sotheby's and Christie's will spend the coming fortnight managing expectations while trying to eke out a living. Atop the agenda this season is the notion of protecting price levels for Impressionist, modern and contemporary pieces.

Reality has struck.

Sotheby's has revealed a sales target of $179 million to $256 million for the spring. Last fall, the auction house hit $411 million – which is paltry compared to the $742 million take at this time last year. The showpiece now is "Baroque Egg with Bow," a sculpture by Jeff Koons, which carries a Sotheby's estimate of $6 million. While this sounds rich for today's market, the house almost quadrupled that amount with a sculpture from the same artist in 2007.

For those who haven't been keeping score, 2007 for the art world was like 1999 for technology people.

By reinforcing concern through modest estimates and carefully selected lots, the major (and smaller auction houses) are subtly positioning themselves for any unexpected support. A strong spring auction – as measured by current economic conditions – could cause global art market confidence to rebound. A turn for the worse, however, would be exacerbated by already depressed hopes.

It's no surprise that last year's art market looked nothing like that of 2007. Last year, the top 10 artists by sales racked up $1.7 billion and accounted for 20 percent of the global art market on 1.5 percent of transactions. This slip in the big revenue number is a lot different from 2007, in which the top 10 brought in $1.8 billion, a year-over-year gain of 50 percent, according to ArtPrice.

Andy Warhol was the problem last year.

The top artist of 2007 fell substantially last year. In 2008, only $236.7 million in Warhol sales occurred – compared to $420 million the year before. As a result, Warhol slid from the #1 spot to #3, and Picasso regained the apex. Francis Bacon moved from #3 to #2 on sales of $256 million. Unbelievable growth of 514 percent in his work from January 2005 to January 2008 turned abruptly, and the artist finished last year down 48 percent ... not that he'd give a tinker's damn about it.

Despite the economic challenges, the price of admission grew. Last year, sales in a particular artist at auction had to reach $91.8 million to hit the big time, up from $87 million in 2007, $59.6 million in 2006 and a comparatively paltry $33.7 million in 2005.

Take a look at the scorecard after the jump.

Once the undisputed land of conspicuous wealth and consumption, the United Arab Emirates is being squeezed by a large drop in oil prices. It's a shame this comes after the region's addiction to art has become fully entrenched. Sotheby's is planning its first contemporary art sale from its new Doha, Qatar branch on March 18, 2009 – also the opening day of the Art Dubai fair. Hell, it's enough to make you "scream" (see photo).

This looks like the triumph of ambition over common sense, but Sotheby's was probably too far into its Middle Eastern endeavors before the bottom fell out on the region's finances. And with Bonhams and Christie's already in town, Sotheby's had little choice but to follow.

The UAE has committed quickly to the art scene. Abu Dhabi is working on building a Louvre, and is erecting a Guggenheim. Last year, art auction revenues reached $34.9 million, up 70 percent from 2007. But, the upcoming auction should be tricky, particularly with the poor performance of the sector last fall in more established markets, like New York, London and Hong Kong.

In around two weeks, we'll see if Sotheby's will be able to make this new auction house work, or if it will fall victim to the greater recession-triggered decline in the art market. The Mei Moses All Art Index dropped 4.5 percent last year. This seems like a modest amount, but you need to remember that record-setting sales continued through the middle of the summer. Last May, Roman Abramovich was a billionaire with a new Francis Bacon piece in his collection. Today ... we know he feels pain, too. The second half of the year wiped out the first half's records and pulled prices down further.

It's a tough time to count on the market to make Sotheby's Doha a success, but the market doesn't give us choices.

[Photo: "El Grito" by Julio Aguilera]

The contemporary art market has hit such hard times that even eternal bankables like Francis Bacon are being affected; even a relatively cheap painting of his failed to sell at Sotheby's in December. Expect interest in the twisted Irish genius to revive when a massive centenary exhibition if his work opens in at NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art in the spring, however. Meanwhile, you can sate yourself on a slew of new Bacon books just hitting shelves. For starters there's an English edition of a lavish catalog produced for an exhibition in Milan earlier this year, Francis Bacon: Anthology by Rudy Chiappini (above), which covers the whole of Bacon's oeuvre dating from the 1930s, as well as a revised edition of Michel Leiris' landmark monograph on the artist. Others focus on Bacon's portraits and his photography collection - but if you just want a nice buzz as opposed to an OD, we'd go with the Anthology.

This week's dismal art auction returns continued with the sale at Christie's New York on Wednesday night in which close to one third of the 75 lots found no buyers. The savvy shoppers were out in hordes though, Bloomberg reports that tennis star and collector John McEnroe, Salma Hayek and the ever art-hungry Eli Broad were in the room checking out the lots. The sale brought in $113.6 million which was around half its presale low estimate. Francis Bacon has been quite the hot seller of late, fueled to some extent by the buying habits of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. But last night a self-portrait by Francis Bacon that Christie's had estimated would sell for about $40 million couldn't find a new home.

And that collection of 16 drawings sold by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Richard S. Fuld Jr. and his wife, Kathy, brought in $13.5 million a bit below the low estimate of $15 million for the collection. More than half, a full 52 percent of the lots sold below the low estimate and Christie's guaranteed the sale of 39 lots, 12 of which didn't sell, which had a combined low estimate of $48 million. This means Christie's is on the hook for those works.

But every evening has its bright spots, Gerhard Richter's 1989 eight-foot-tall ``Abstraktes Bild (710),'' painted with a squeegee sold for $14.9 million. And you can't keep a good Basquiat down, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich sold a 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat painting ``Untitled (Boxer)'' for $13.5 million, above the $12 million estimate.

Christie's has announced it will offer one of the two Lucian Freud portraits of Francis Bacon in its Post-War and Contemporary Art auction in London this October. Pilar Ordovas, Christie's Head of Post-War and Contemporary art, calls it an "intimate portrait" that is a testament to the relationship between arguably the two "most important British artists of the 20th century."

The piece is estimated to reach bids of up to £7 million, though if last May's sale of Freud's Benefit Supervisor Sleeping is any indication, it might go for more -- that painting sold for $33 million.

Our friends at Kempt spotted Dasha Zhukova, Russian oligarch / Luxist mascot Roman Abramovich's gorgeous 27-year-old girlfriend, partying with supermodels and movie stars at an A-list art gallery opening in Moscow the other night. Zhukova (right) rubbed elbows with the likes of Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova (left), sexy star of several ad campaigns, at the opening for megabucks art dealer Larry Gagosian in a former chocolate factory. As we reported recently, Abramovich has bankrolled a new Moscow art gallery for Zhukova, which will mount a major Francis Bacon exhibition in 2010. At the Gagosian show, works by the likes of Jeff Koons and Vuitton collaborator Takashi Murakami were on display.

Most of megabucks Irish artist Francis Bacon's major works - an estimated $6 billion worth in total - just went on exhibit at the Tate Britain in London. As my colleague Deidre Woollard reported in May, Luxist mascot Roman Abramovich slapped down a record-breaking $86.3 million for a Bacon triptych at Sotheby's.

The exhibition will run through January 2009; as we noted earlier this month, Abramovich is bankrolling a Bacon show of his own at his girlfriend's Moscow gallery in 2010. Meanwhile, the Times of London just declared Bacon, who died in 1992 long before his prices went ballistic, to be the "single greatest artist that Britain has produced in the past 100 years." That must come as something of a shock to Damien Hirst.

[via Men.Style]

Profligate Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is bankrolling a major Francis Bacon exhibition at his gorgeous 27-year-old girlfriend Dasha Zhukova's new Moscow art gallery in 2010. The show at the luxe gallery, called the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture and also financed by Abramovich, will be entitled Death Shadowing Life: Francis Bacon: The Late Paintings, 1971-92, and will subsequently travel to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, The Art Newspaper reports. The announcement would seem to explain Abramovich's astounding $86.3 million acquisition of a Bacon triptych at Sotheby's in May. Zhukova's gallery officially opens on Sept. 16 with an Ilya Kabakov retrospective.

Not to be outdone by archrival Christie's, Sotheby's is staging its own major Contemporary Art auction in London on July 1st. With total pre-sale estimates topping $130 million, the event is being billed as "the highest value summer sale of contemporary art ever held by Sotheby's in Europe." The untitled Jean-Michel Basquiat painting belonging to Irish rockers U2 that my colleague Deidre Woollard mentioned earlier this month is a top draw in the auction, with an estimate of $8 - $12 million.

Other highlights include two important works by Francis Bacon: Figure Turning, painted 1962, est. $20 - $30 million, and Study for Head of George Dyer, painted in 1967, est. at over $16 million. Rounding out the other notable big-ticket items are Richard Prince's Overseas Nurse, 2002, est. at $8 - $12 million - more than the current Prince auction record; and Andy Warhol's 1964 Large Campbell's Soup Can (pictured right), est. $5 - $7 million. Also of interest: tennis great John McEnroe is selling his 1986 Warhol portrait with ex Tatum O'Neal, est. only $500,000 - $700,000. See the gallery for images.

A rare Francis Bacon triptych that has never before been seen in public and has never been offered at auction is expected to fetch over $20 million during Christie's Contemporary Art Sales in London at the end of the month. Painted in Paris in 1975, Three Studies for a Self Portrait (above) is similar in character to the Bacon triptych that sold for $28 million at Christie's last month. Also starring in the sales on June 30 through July 1: Lucian Freud's Naked Potrait with Reflection, one of the most important works by the artist ever to be offered at auction, est. $20 million - $30 million; Jeff Koons' Balloon Flower (Magenta), 1995-2000, the most important Koons work ever offered at auction in Europe, est. about $25 million; Andy Warhol's Nine Multicolored Marilyns, est. $5 million - $7 million; and Jean-Michel Basquiat's Trunk, painted in 1982, est. $2 - $3 million.

It seems that whenever a question of big spending comes up all around the world, one name is always bandied about. Mukesh Ambani may be the world's richest man but it's Roman Abramovich who does the most spending. And he was at it again last week busy at both Sotheby's and Christie's. The Art Newspaper reports that the Russian billionaire bought both Francis Bacon's Triptych, 1976, which sold at Sotheby's New York for $86.3 million and Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, 1995, which sold at Christie's for $33.6 million. Why the interest in art from a man who is more famous for his real estate and his huge yachts? Apparently he's looking to furnish his London home. and his girlfriend, Dasha Zhukova, is also an art lover who is planning to is to open a new gallery in Moscow specializing in contemporary art.

[Thanks, Lana]

The big wow from Sotheby's contemporary art sale on Wednesday, was the record price set for a Francis Bacon. His "Triptych, 1976" sold for $86.281 million setting a record for postwar art and topping the estimate of around $70 million. Sotheby's had their best night in their nearly 300-year history bringing in a total of $362 million, which bested the $348.2 million haul from Christie's just the night before. While at the Christie's sale a Mark Rothko painting went for over $50 million, at this sale a similar painting went unsold. Seventeen other artists also set record including Robert Rauschenberg, who died this week. His "Overdrive" sold for $14.6 million. Takashi Murakami's amusing sculpture "My Lonesome Cowboy" went for $15.16 million which is rather amazing considering his previous record for $2.7 million. At the sale 87 percent of the 83 lots were sold and the sale exceeded the high presale estimate of $357 million. Fine art spending is alive and well, if there's a fall coming, well, inevitably there will be one, it seems it won't be for a while yet.

[Thanks, Rob!]