Sotheby’s Changes to Franchise in Oz – artmarketblog.com
In what I understand is an unprecedented event, Australian auction house Bonhams and Goodman Auctioneers will ditch the Bonhams brand and relaunch as the Australian arm of Sotheby’s. According to the ACCC website, “First East Auction Holdings trading as Bonhams & Goodman proposes to acquire auction business and associated assets of Sotheby’s Australia and also obtain a licence to use the Sotheby’s trademark in Australia and New Zealand for a period of 10 years.”
Sotheby’s International has operated a branch in Australia since 1982 but will now hand over the reins to Tim Goodman, head of Bonhams and Goodman, along with a license agreement which gives Goodman the right to operate under the Sotheby’s name. Bonhams, on the other hand, will now manage their own operations in Australia instead licensing their name to another company. According to Bonhams: “Bonhams 1793 – a shareholder in the Australian company First East Auction Holdings Limited (FEAHL), which has traded for six years as Bonhams & Goodman – announced today that Bonhams 1793 will launch its own independent operation in Australia, looking to expand its presence in this important market as part of Bonhams operations in 25 countries around the world.”
At the beginning of the year there were rumours spreading that Sotheby’s would follow Christie’s and abandon Australia all together so it is a relief for the Australian art market that Sotheby’s are not jumping ship. Sotheby’s licenses their name to real estate agents through the Sotheby’s Realty brand which was purchased by Cedant Corporation in 2004 but, from what I can gather, has not licensed their name to an auction house in this way before. According to my sources, Sotheby’s is very reluctant to lend their name to anyone so is obviously very trusting of Tim Goodman and seems keen to maintain a presence in Australia.
On a less positive note Artemis Auctions, the Australia art auction house aimed at the middle market which was started at the beginning of this year, has been re-absorbed by the parent companies after poor results. Mossgreen Auctions and Deutscher and Hackett Auctions were responsible for the ambitious venture that supposed to be filling what was thought to be a gap in the lower to middle market. When artemis auctions was started at the beginning of the year I with the statement made by the owner of the auction house, Paul Sumner, who said that the lower and middle market was under serviced. In fact, my impression was that this sector of the market was in fact over serviced; an opinion that I made clear on my Australian Art Market Blog. And I was right. It is a shame that the business was not a success but such is life.
**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications.
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By the last round of auctions for 2008 in November and December it was obvious that the auction industry was still coming to terms with the art market correction taking place despite the fact that signs of a cooling market had been evident for several months prior. It appears that some auction houses had taken the opportunity to adjust their sales to reflect the leaner times but it also appeared that some of the auction houses had not been so savvy and either were being pressured by their vendors to work with higher estimates or had just not made the correct revisions. The bargains that people are bound to be seeking as the art market undergoes a correction had just begun to appear at the November/December sales prompting some of the more confident buyers to take advantage. Overall, however, the end of year sales continued to reflect the softening market albeit with some scattered positive results brightening that light at the end of the tunnel. What needs to be understood is that the results for 2008 were no where near as bad as many people made out. Taking all things into consideration the Australian art market appeared to have held up rather well by the end of 2008 with the effects of the financial crisis seemingly not affecting the Australian market as much as certain international markets.
2008 was a rather interesting year for the Australian art market with results for the first half of the year giving the impression that, for the time being at least, the market for art in Australia was set to continue it’s bull run albeit at a less frenzied pace. One of the most celebrated (and over-rated) sales of the year took place in June when the Sydney based auction house Deutscher-Menzies sold Picasso’s “Sylvette” for AU$6.9 million which was the most expensive painting ever sold at auction in Australia. The identity or location of the overseas buyer was not made public but is rumored to have been a collector from Russia or another European country. Menzies was quoted as saying “It’s a historic day for Australia in the sense that a very significant international picture by the greatest artist of the 20th Century was sold at an Australian auction for a record price”.
Art Market Blog with Nicholas Forrest www.artmarketblog.com 