impressionists

Super Bowl Town Museums Put Impressionist Art On The Line

Filed under: Art, Sports

Super Bowl XLV is just over a week away and the rivalry between Green Bay and Pittsburgh has heated up. The Milwaukee Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art have decided to make a friendly wager on the football game. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that each is offering up an Impressionist work of art. If the Packers win the Carnegie Museum will send over Renoir's "Bathers with Crab" for a temporary loan where visitors can see it and not only take in some beautiful art but gloat a bit too. Should the Steelers prove victorious, "Boating on the Yerres" by Gustav Caillebotte will be taking the journey to the Carnegie.

This is the second year in a row that art critic Tyler Green has prompted a bet. Last year the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art squared off which resulted "The Fifth Plague of Egypt", 1800, a landscape by British artist J.M.W. Turner spending a few months in new Orleans where it was displayed with a Lombardi-trophy-shaped sign designating the triumph.

Tags: caillebotte, green bay packers, impressionist, impressionist art, impressionists, Indianapolis Colts, renoir, Super Bowl XLV

May Art Sales to Bring Records and Liquidity

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

The Impressionist and Modern Art sales on May 4 and 5, 2010 are likely to confirm a continued climb in art auction pricing. We're now six months or so into the badly needed upswing, and there's plenty of room for optimism. Not only are the presale estimates and sales on the way up, but the number of pieces being resold quickly is on the rise, as well. This means that there's a high degree of liquidity in the art market: collectors can sell easily and without worry (as long as the inventory doesn't suck, in which case there's no hope, of course).

The increase in art market liquidity is due in part to the return of guaranteed minimum pricing, in which the auction houses assume some sales risk for attractive or desirable pieces that they feel can beat the numbers and attract buyers and sellers of other strong works. According to ArtPrice, there are "tens of millions of dollars for major works" committed via guaranteed minimum pricing, indicating that confidence is up.

It's the price guarantees that have led to the arrival of some strong pieces at the early may auctions this year, including pieces from the collections of Mrs Sidney Francis Brody, Raymond and Miriam Klein, Bernard Goldberg and Michael Crichton. Brody's works alone could fetch up to $150 million. The high estimate for Christie's is $300 million, a target that doesn't include the top lot, "Nude, Green Leaves" by Pablo Picasso, which as Jared Paul Stern revealed in a recent column is expected to bring in as much as $90 million. Other artists with eight-figure estimates include Henri Matisse, and Alberto Giacometti.

Don't just look for good news – also a expect a few records to b set. Sotheby's has high hopes for pieces by Salvador Dali and Auguste Rodin.

Source

Tags: alberto giacometti, art auction, art auctions, art market, artist, Artists, auction, auction houses, auction-house, auctions, Christie, Christies, ChristiesAuction, ChristiesAuctionHouse, contemporary, contemporary art, giacometti, Henri Matisse, impressionist, impressionists, michael crichton, modern art, Pablo Picasso, picasso, rodin, Salvador Dali, Sotheby, sothebys

London Art Auction Market Gives Up 70 Percent

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

June auction revenues were off 70 percent in London this year, due in large part to job cuts and an unwillingness to guarantee lots. Even the occasional sign of hope had to be taken with a grain of salt, as lower expectations tended to magnify this year's results falsely.

Together, Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips de Pury pulled in $269.4 million in this summer's sales – off 70 percent from a year ago. In addition to the mechanical drivers of lost jobs and guarantees, the auction houses haven't had an easy time bringing high-profile, high-value pieces to market. Every event in London this summer unloaded at least two-thirds of its inventory, and success rates rose to above 88 percent at the Sotheby's and Christie's events this past June, but lingering in the background is the notion that 2009, at this point, is nothing like 2008.

To some, the current art slump is reminiscent of the early 1990s, in which a bubble in Impressionist art pricing precipitated a general decline, and nobody could get a realistic sense of a piece's value. The market took several years to recover, but it has since passed the levels of nearly 20 years ago. The Impressionists are down 68 percent this year, roughly in line with global trends, with the contemporary market off approximately 73 percent. New York fared no better than London, with contemporary sales at Sotheby's down 75 percent and Christies off 72 percent.

Source

Tags: art, art auction, art auctions, art bubble, art market, ArtAuction, ArtAuctions, ArtBubble, ArtMarket, artwork, auctionhouse, auctionhouses, bubble, bubble watch, BubbleWatch, christies, contemporary art, ContemporaryArt, impressionist, impressionists, london, phillips de pury, PhillipsDePury, sothebys

Christie's Maxes The Minimum Yet Again

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

Paintings by Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso may have sold for $20 million, but the overall take of $61 million was off 74 percent from last year's Christie's Impressionist art auction. Forty-four lots came under the gavel last night with results good enough to beat the minimum estimate by ₤250,000 ($400,000) ... but you have to remember that the low end of the estimate is already low-balled. Even though expectations were roughly met, it was a tough night in London.

Last year, 81 lots fetched more than $250 million, close to $100 million of which came from Monet's "Le Bassin aux Nympheas." Monet was among the stars at Christie's this year, too, but at a fraction of the amount. As expected, the number of high-profile pieces coming to auction is down because the auction houses are no longer guaranteeing minimum prices.

Only 68 percent of the lots brought under the gavel moved this year mostly in the range of $450,000 to $900,000. In this "middle market," a third of the lots failed to sell, and only two were able to beat their high estimates. Usually, Christie's is able to hit a sale rate of 80 percent for this sector.

So, what does this art auction teach collectors across the market? Hitting low estimates is no sign of recovery. Lower standards that are barely met is far from an upswing. Managing expectations is far from art market managing returns.

Source

Tags: art, art market, ArtMarket, artwork, auction, auction-house, auctions, christies, claude monet, ClaudeMonet, impressionist, impressionists, pablo picasso, PabloPicasso

Gauguin Painting Sells for $19.2 Million

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions

Paul Gauguin's lovely "Deux Femmes'' sold for 11 million pounds ($19.2 million) at Sotheby's London. The painting was the most expensive lot in the Impressionist sale. The Gauguin went to a telephone bidder. The auction also included eight paintings from Edvard Munch which sold for a total of 16.9 million pounds, including commission. Joan Miro's gold-and-blue picture of a bird under a sickle-shaped moon was the number two lot at 4.6 million pounds. The prices seems to indicate that the Impressionist market is continuing to thrive. Bloomberg notes that European impressionists including Gauguin gained 17 percent last year, while contemporary art rose 13.8 percent.

Source

Tags: auction, auction results, gauguin, impressionists, painting