June Online Art Auctions – artmarketblog.com

June Online Art Auctions – artmarketblog.com

George S. Zimbel: 'Marilyn Monroe and Billy Wilder, The Seven Year Itch, New York, 1954'. Being auctioned by artnet auctions

Online auctions can be a great source of art for collectors and investors as long as you buy from a reputable auctioneer that offers a guarantee of authenticity and condition. All the auctioneers listed below are extremely reputable and totally trustworthy so you can feel confident in dealing with any of them. There are always great bargains to be had so it’s well worth taking the time to browse through the catalogues, you never know what you may find!!!!

Canadian auction house Heffel.com is currently auctioning a selection of works by Eastern Canadian and Western Canadian modernists including works by Paul-Emile Borduas, Leon Bellefleur and Mary Frances Pratt. This auction finishes on the 25th of June.

Browse works here:
http://www.heffel.com/online/Index_E.aspx

iGavel is currently auctioning a selection of Fine Art and Antiques from Southern Estates and Various Owners which finishes on the 30th of June. This diverse auction features a group of psychedelic posters from the San Francisco music scene of the 1960s, a number of old master paintings, work from the Florida school, paintings by accomplished American illustrators working in the first half of the 20th century and other works by notable 20th century artists including Bernard Buffet, John Newton Howitt, Oliver Chaffee, A.B. Davies, Hattie Saussey and John Stobart.

Highlights from the decorative arts include a 17th century ivory inlaid Spanish vargueno, silver and objects of vertu from Gorham, Tiffany and Cartier, coin silver, American weather vanes, Venetian glass, 18th Century Georgian Furniture, 18th Century pewter and many interesting group lots.

Browse items here:

http://auction.igavel.com/AuctionHelp.taf?S=N&R=2&C=2&return=50&sort=1&ST=1&days=&category_id=&_start=1&keyword=E3AB&_UserReference=7F000001471891E7E8D3991F1FD44A35006E

Now through June 25, artnet Auctions is featuring Icons: 20th-21st Century Photographic Portraits, a special sale of 250 original fine art photographs of legendary figures including Muhammad Ali, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jackie Kennedy, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe and Kate Moss by renowned photographers from Louise Dahl-Wolfe to David LaChapelle.

Browse works here:

http://www.artnet.com/AUCTIONS/Pages/Common/Search/LotSearchResult.aspx?LotSearchState=1&Keyword=icons%20sale&SearchIn=AllArtWorks#scroll=1

**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.

Investing in an Artist’s Oeuvre – artmarketblog.com

Investing in an Artist’s Oeuvre – artmarketblog.com

'Christie's Auction' by Thomas Rowlandson

When you invest in a work of art, especially by a deceased artist, you are essentially investing not in just one work of art but in the artist’s entire body of work which is known as an oeuvre. An oeuvre is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a substantial body of work constituting the lifework of a writer, an artist, or a composer”. When it comes to documenting an artist’s oeuvre a publication called a catalogue raisonné is usually published which lists all known works by a particular artist. What I want to look at in this post is the rather important question of what should be included in an artist’s oeuvre and how what is included in an artist’s oeuvre can have an effect on the market for an artist’s work.

Considering that an artist’s oeuvre is supposed to be the entire body of work an artist produced throughout their career it would seem to make sense that every single piece of art they produced should be included. Or does it?. I recently spoke to the widow of one of Australia’s most famous and highly valued artists who was responsible for documenting her late husband’s oeuvre. Instead of just including everything in the oeuvre she undertook a very extensive examination of her late husband’s work and made decisions relating to what should and should not be included in the oeuvre. Her decisions were based on the theory that everything an artist produces is not necessarily produced as a work of art and should therefore not be included in a documentation of that artist’s body of work. An example was given where people who visited the studio of her late husband would take doodles or sketches out of the bin with the intention of selling them some time in the future. With many such pieces, which would be unsigned and undocumented, now infiltrating the market, the question of whether they should be included in the artist’s oeuvre becomes rather important. The reason it becomes important is because the size of an artist’s oeuvre can dictate how much demand there is for an artist’s work and also because what is included in an artist’s oeuvre can effect people’s perception of the artist’s whole oeuvre.

The oeuvre of the Australian artist used in the example I gave earlier is very small compared to other artists and is undoubtedly a contributing factor in the high value put on the artist’s work because a smaller oeuvre means that demand for an artist’s work is going to be higher because there are less works available on the market. Imagine for a second that an artist produced hundreds and hundreds of doodles and sketches that the artist did not intend to ever display or sell. Because the artist did no intend these pieces to be viewed or sold they are probably not going to be very good quality and are probably completely meaningless in the scheme of things as well as being worth very little. If hundreds of such pieces became available a whole market of lower priced, low quality and probably meaningless bits of paper would be created for that artist which would undoubtedly have an effect on people’s perceptions of the artist’s whole body of work. When it comes to the market for the artist’s work the addition of hundreds of meaningless, low value and poor quality pieces to those genuine works available on the market could change people’s perception of the value of the artist’s work as a whole.

I can understand why those in charge of artist’s estates go to such extreme lengths to protect the integrity and stability of an artist’s oeuvre because, when it comes to the work of deceased artists, the stability and integrity of the artist’s oeuvre has a strong influence on the value of an artist’s work and the way people perceive the desirability of an artist’s work. The estate of Jackson Pollock is a good example of an estate that is ruthless when it comes to protecting and preserving an artist’s oeuvre. The Pollock-Krasner foundation have produced a complete catalogue raisonne of Pollock’s work and will not allow any additions to that raisonne unless they are 100% certain that the work is genuine and that it is part of the artist’s oeuvre. Considering that Pollock is one of the most highly valued and desirable artists ever means that any alteration to the artist’s oeuvre could have major repercussions.

By not recognising pieces not meant to be viewed as works of art in the documentation of her late husband’s oeuvre the widow of the artist used in the example earlier is able to maintain the integrity and stability of her late husband’s oeuvre by ensuring that fakes are not recognised as genuine works and that works not meant to be included in the artist’s oeuvre are not not recognised as works of art. Maintaining the integrity and stability of the entire oeuvre will consequently have a positive effect on the integrity, desirability and value of each individual work. When investing in a work of art by a deceased artist it is always a good idea to do some research on the artist’s oeuvre to see whether it is managed by anyone and whether it is stable and has maintained it’s integrity over a period of time. It is also a good idea to make sure that if you are purchasing a work by an artist whose oeuvre has been documented in a catalogue raisonne that the work you are purchasing appears in that catalogue otherwise the work may be fake or may require authentication by the artist’s estate or by an authentication organisation. The moral of the story is that an artist’s oeuvre is very important to the value and desirability of an individual work of art so make sure you know what you are buying into especially if you are buying for investment purposes.

**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.

The Price and Value of Contemporary Art – artmarketblog.com

The Price and Value of Contemporary Art – artmarketblog.com

The problem with the market for contemporary art is that the perceived value of the work by a contemporary artist (especially emerging artists) is often reliant on someone taking the risk of backing that artist which then adds credibility to their work thus prompting other people to buy their work as well.  With the work of contemporary artists (even more so with emerging artists), the price of their work and the value of their work are often virtually one in the same because it is likely that there will be little or no other factors with which to determine the value of their work.  The reason that I refer to the value of work by emerging contemporary artists as perceived value is because it is a value based on the opinion of who ever is purchasing the work. It is unlikely that an emerging artist’s career or their body of work would have had time to develop or progress enough for someone to make a justifiable judgment regarding the value of the work based on the characteristics that are most often used as indicators of value. These indicators include: provenance, contribution to art history, rarity, exhibition history of artist, critical analysis, significance of particular work in artist’s oeuvre, recognition by scholars and academics etc.

In a nutshell, the contemporary art market is driven by people’s perception of value which is, in turn, based on other people’s perception of value which is basically what people refer to as the domino effect. One person gets the ball rolling and others keep it going. This trend is evident with the likes of Charles Saatchi who can make or break an artist because of the influence that he has on people’s perception of an artist’s work. Saatchi’s influence is so great that people mimic his actions regardless of their own point of view and regardless of what Saatchi’s motives for purchasing that artist’s work may have been. By the very act of purchasing an artwork Charles Saatchi or anyone with a similar level of influence can, by purchasing a work of art, give value to that work of art and the artist that painted it. Because there is no real set of factors that dictate what determines the value of a work of contemporary art by an artist whose career is still in the developing stages we often have rely on the opinion of experts such as art critics, gallery owners, museums, collectors, dealers etc. to provide an opinion of the value of the work of a contemporary artist. An opinion which, in the case of gallery owners and dealers, is quite likely going to be at least somewhat biased and subjective.

During boom times the prices being paid for works by many of the contemporary artists rise at a far faster rate than they should and for reasons that are not related to the actual value of the artist and their work. It is usually the speculators and flippers who push the prices for the contemporary works of art sky high as they try and make a quick buck. However, when the potential for making a quick buck disappears and the art market takes a hit, these flippers and speculators are the first to exit the art market. Because the value associated with a work of contemporary art is a type of value that is dependent upon people’s actions and is not an inherent value that is automatically associated with that work of art, if people stop buying the work work of such an artist then there are no, or very few other factors that give value to the work of art. With the one major source of perceived value no longer in play people then start looking at the traditional defining factors of value such as the ones I mentioned earlier (provenance, contribution to art history, rarity, exhibition history of artist, critical analysis, significance of particular work in artist’s oeuvre, recognition by scholars and academics etc.). Because the traditional defining factors of value become much more identifiable and qualifiable the longer the artist has been working and the longer the artist’s work has been in existence, the work of the old masters becomes far more attractive.

People turn to the old masters and works by more established “blue chip” artists during times of art market uncertainty because the value of works by such artists is much easier to identify and because the value of such works is actually associated with the characteristics of the artist’s career and their body of work and not just based on perception. Because the value of works by “blue chip” artists such as the old masters is much easier to determine, works by these artists are far less prone to the rapid rise and over-inflation of prices like contemporary works are and, as such, represent a far more stable and less risky investment. For this reason it is quite likely that there will be a renewed interest in works by the modern and old masters and a reduced level of interest in works by contemporary artists and an even lower level of interest in works by emerging contemporary artists.

**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.

Trailblazers at Boutwell Draper Gallery – artmarketblog.com

Trailblazers at Boutwell Draper Gallery – artmarketblog.com

Work by Jesse Hogan

From the 19th of November to the 13 of December, Sydney’s Boutwell Draper gallery are holding an exciting exhibition called Trailblazers which includes work by artists from Australia, Europe and the United States who are considered to be at the cutting edge of contemporary artistic practice.
According to the exhibition catalogue “Content is what unifies the artists in Trailblazers, a show of
international contemporary artists at Boutwell Draper Gallery.The contributing artists, though in various stages of their art practices, produce the kind of content that has plucked them from their respective beginnings in new urban, underground, street and outsider art and landed them in professional art circles around the world. These are the talents that have marched forward and defined new paths for the future generations”
The artists included in the show are:
Kelsey Brookes, Copyright, Ben Frost, Matt Furie, Jesse Hogan, Hush, Ian Johnson, Anthony Lister
Buff Monster, Numskull, 1337, Alex Pardee, Shannon Dmote Peel, Cleon Peterson
Mark Whalen Kill Pixie, Plusminus, Pure Evil, J.Shea, Regan HaHa Tamanui, Andy Uprock
Trent Whitehead, Kid Zoom
Established in 2001, Boutwell Draper Gallery is committed to the promotion of both emerging and established contemporary artists. The artists shown in the gallery work in a broad range of media, from painting and photography to sculpture, installation, video and digital arts. For more information go to http://www.boutwelldrapergallery.com.au or see the catalogue here:trailblazers

**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.

Contemporary Korean Art [Oct 08] – artmarketblog.com

Contemporary Korean Art – artmarketblog.com

Copyright@Artprice.com

On the one hand, Korean art is being driven by changes within the country that started 20 years ago with the Olympic Games in Seoul and the first fully democratic elections, and on the other hand, by the remarkable success of contemporary Chinese and Indian artists.
While Asian auction houses, such as Borobudur Singapore and Seoul Auction Center, are driving the market there, the global majors, Christie’s and Sotheby’s, recently integrated Korean art into their Contemporary Asian Art sales. Korea also has its own art fair, the KIAF, whose seventh edition ended in September.

Surrounded by other Asian art fairs of the likes of Art Taipei, SH Contemporary, Art Beijing, Art Singapore, Shanghai Art Fair, CIGE in China, Art Beijing and Art Fair Tokyo, Korea has taken advantage of the economic and artistic dynamism of the entire Asia zone.
In the West, Korean artists who have emerged in the auction world and who are promoted in major exhibitions are very often naturalised Americans, like Kim SOO-JA and Do-Ho SUH who have followed the path opened by NAM JUNE PAIK, a South Korean born in Seoul in 1932 and who died in Miami on 29 January 2006. Nam June Paik was a veritable precursor in the domain of art video and a world recognised artist. The year after his death, the market for his work literally exploded generating a total auction revenue of 2.24 million euros – a sum representing his cumulative auction revenue over the 10 previous years! The Christie’s sales in Hong-Kong in May and November 2007substantially contributed to this result, particularly with the video installation entitled Wright Brothers which set a new record for the artist when sold for double its initial estimate at HKD 4.2 million (USD 540,120). In a gloomy economic period, the two installations presented at Sotheby’s London on the 20th October 2008, and at Christie’s on the next day, remained unsold.

In 2007, while Christie’s was generating million-dollar sales from its Asian Art sales in Hong-Kong with works by Xiaogang ZHANG (Portrait in Yellow, 25 Nov. 2007) and Minjun YUE (Portrait of the Artist and his Friend, 27 May 2007), Korean artists also largely exceeded their estimates at the same sales. Among them, KIM DUCK YONG, CHOI YEONG GEOL, YOON BYUNG ROCK, KIM EUN JIN and several artists in their thirties like AHN SUNG HA, JEONG BO YOUNG, MIN JUNG YEON or PARK JAE-YOUNG. The hyper-realist painting by Jae-Young PARK for example, estimated at HKD 80,000, fetched HKD 100,000 more its estimate (selling for the equivalent of USD 23,000) on 27 May 2007.

Today, young Korean artists born in the 1960s generate results on a par with their Asian peers. Take for example Dong-Yoo KIM, born in 1965, whose work Mao vs Monroe fetched a new record at Sotheby’s London in February 2008. The work, representing the face of Mao Zedong based on an accumulation of hundreds of mini-portraits of Marilyn Monroe, like the pixels of the image, is an extremely buoyant theme in the speculative climate of Chinese art. It fetched no less than GBP290,000, (USD 576,520) … far beyond the record of his elder Kwang-Young CHUN (born in 1944) whose auction high was HKD 2.5 millions (USD 321,500, 25 Nov. 2007, at Christie’s). Both appeared for the first time at public auction the same year (2006). They share – like many other Korean artists – a penchant for the extremely minute, for accumulation and for illusionism. With CHUN KWANG YOUNG, this penchant is expressed in a series entitled Aggregation, inaugurated in 1994. Each work is a surreal landscape composed of an accumulation of hundreds of minuscule triangles made out of Korean mulberry paper… the same paper that his herb doctor used to envelop his herbs and remedies. These works were acquired by buyers from Korea, Japan, China and the United States. On 17 September 2008, at the Sotheby’s’ Contemporary Asian Art sale in New-York, an impressive Aggregation (131.8 x 163.2 cm) doubled its estimate when it fetched USD 85,000. Two years earlier, when Sotheby’s offered a work of similar quality by CHUN KWANG YOUNG for the first time, it was priced at USD 40,000.

Another very successful Korean artist is Do-ho suh. Born in 1962 in Korea, he lives in New-York where his first sculpture submitted to auction by Christie’s in 2007 fetched USD 50,000, twice its estimated value… Entitled Some-One, it is made up of hundreds of soldiers’ I-D plates. The work of Do-ho suh already caused a sensation 6 years earlier at the 49th Venice biennial in 2001 where it represented South Korea.

As the Art market is starting to feel the first effects of the financial crisis, and considering that 30% of the lots remained unsold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong at the beginning of October, in Asia the Artprice AMCI, is getting down and down (reaching -10 on the 27th October). As a consequence The Korean artists rise may slow down within the next few months.

**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.

Mattress Factory Art Auction – artmarketblog.com

Mattress Factory Art Auction – artmarketblog.com

The leveling-off of prices at the middle and lower end of the market have resulted in the potential for plenty of bargains. One such source for potential fine art bargains is the upcoming auction being held by the Mattress Factory, a Pittsburgh USA based museum of contemporary art with a primary focus on the exhibition of installation works. Of particular interest is the museum’s residency program which, since it begun in 1977, has supported over 300 artists including the likes of James Turrell, Kiki Smith, Damien Hirst, Greer Lankton, Rolf Julius and Raqs Media Collective. According to the museum’s website “Each year artists come to Pittsburgh, live at the museum, and create new work. During their time here, the museum supports them completely while they experiment, take risks, and explore the creative process.”

To help support the museum’s mission an art auction is held every five years of works donated by artists who have exhibited their work at the museum such as Margo Sawyer, Sarah Oppenheimer and Anita Dube. At 8.00PM on October the 18th the museum’s 30th Anniversary art auction auction will go live worldwide via a partnership with eBay Live Auctions. Contemporary art-lovers around the globe will be able to compete with bidders on the auction room floor for one-of-a-kind works by some of the world’s most notable artists. All proceeds generated from the auction will help fund Mattress Factory exhibitions, programs and operations.

To view the works on offer and to register to bid go here:
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/16666

For more information on the Mattress Factory check out:
http://www.mattress.org/index.cfm?event=About

image: “Roden Crater: Complete Site Plan”, 2008, 30″ x 40″, Inkjet on paper, Artist proof. The subject of the print is an aerial photograph of Roden Crater taken by James Turrell in 1983, before any construction was done. Superimposed on top of the photographic image is the complete site plan for the Roden Crater Project. All of the above and below grade tunnels as well as all the spaces.

**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

Rationalising Art Market Movements – artmarketblog.com

Rationalising Art Market Movements – artmarketblog.com

If you were to ask the art market where it was heading it would most likely say “I don’t know” and tell you to ask again at the beginning of next year. I don’t think that there is any doubt that an art market correction is well overdue and is desperately needed to sort the rational and justifiable from the irrational and unjustifiable. What this doesn’t mean is that the whole art market will head south but rather that the market is going through a stage of contextualisation and evaluation. The reason that the correction is so important is that prices for art have increased far too quickly which technically speaking would be referred to as over-inflated prices which basically means that works of art are currently overpriced. When value for money becomes an even more important factor, such as it has now due to the global financial crisis, then people tend to take much more notice of price versus value than when money was less of an issue.

The three things that will characterise the art market while the correction takes place are rarity, quality and desirability. By rarity I mean rarity in terms of scale, quality, subject, provenance, period and not so much the total number of works produced by an artist. For instance, Picasso produced many works but the work ‘Garcon a la pipe’ is considered to be rare because it is an early work, is one of only a few large works from the artist’s Rose period and was the only one to remain in private hands when it sold for a record $104 million in 2004. According to an article from the International Herald Tribune written by Souren Melikian in 2004 about ‘Garcon a la pipe’: “The huge figure reflects the double iconic value that the portrait derived from its mastery and from the aura of its owners, the very patrician Whitneys. The portrait is perhaps the artist’s ultimate achievement. Constantly hailed as the giant of modern art, Picasso was probably at his greatest when working under the spell of Old Masters. The rigorous composition, the color balance and the profound psychological probe of the young sitter place the likeness in a category that begins with Italian Renaissance portraitists and continues right through the 19th century with Corot and Degas.” (Record $104 million paid for Picasso painting)

To be continued…

image: Garçon à la Pipe (1905) by Pablo Picasso

**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

Street Art Goes Mainstream – artmarketblog.com

Street Art Goes Mainstream – artmarketblog.com

Works by Banksy may have struggled to find buyers of late due to issues regarding authenticity but in general, urban graffiti and street art continue to attract plenty of attention and money. The NY Times recently featured an article about the street artist Shepard Fairey titled Closer to Mainstream, Still a Bit Rebellious which is about the increasing amount of recogntion that Fairey is receiving from the mainstream art world. The article notes that “He also has a new book, “E Pluribus Venom,” of work from his 2007 exhibition in New York, and in February the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston will host his first solo museum show, “Supply and Demand.” Considering the attention that Shepard Fairey has been receiving of late one can’t help but determine that his work is a good investment. Most of small edition prints at the artist’s website obeygiant.com have sold out but there is still one left for those smart people who purchase one of the artists works.
http://obeygiant.com/store/product.php?productid=31&cat=2&page=1

You can also get some nice Shepard Fairey prints here:
http://www.stolenspace.com/section.php?xSec=213

According to an article in the UK Telegraph, graffiti artist D*Face has just had a sell out show at the Black Rat Press (http://www.blackratpress.com) gallery in London where Banksy collector Christina Aguilera purchased one the works in the show. If you are unfamiliar with the work of D*FACE then check out this interview with him on the Fecal Face website:
http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1097&Itemid=92
For those collectors and investors wanting a piece of the D*Face auction check out the Hoody Art website which has some really nice D*Face limited edition works for sale which can be viewed here:
http://www.hoodyart.com/#/dface/4529203451

Or you could try these other online stores for other D*Face editions:
http://www.artrepublic.com/prints/11976-statue-of-liberty-silkscreen-limited-edition-of-150.html

The nature of street/urban/graffiti art lends it’s self well to the print medium and have proven to be a good investment but it is the original works of art that undoubtedly have the highest potential for significant increases in value. The best online gallery for original street/urban/graffiti art is the Lazarides Galleries whose website can be found here: http://www.lazinc.com/available-art/original-art/

Happy collecting and investing !!

image:

Marilyn Shredded by D*Face

**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

German Expressionism: aggression with a brush – artmarketblog.com

German Expressionism: aggression with a brush – artmarketblog.com

Copyright@Artprice.com

The price index for German expressionist masters has been particularly dynamic over the past 2 years. Underpinning this price progression: a rarefaction of the offer; some exceptional works coming to market and plenty of recent exhibitions. For example, Emil Nolde is currently being honoured with a retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris – until 19 January 2009.

Over the last two years, the auction results of Emil Hansen NOLDE (1867-1956) have been spectacular. Already in 2002 he emerged as the top-ranking German artist (by sales volume) with an annual revenue figure of 4.6 million euros. In 2006, sales of his works generated no less than 20 millions euros! This year, there have been numerous sales above the million-dollar line in Germany, Switzerland and the UK. A heavily framed portrait from 1919 intituled Rotblondes Mädchen, from which emerges a piecing melancholic look, generated a new auction record for the artist when it sold for GBP 1.85 million (EUR 2.7m) on 20 June 2006 at Christie’s in London. This strange face, disturbing and captivating at the same time, reflects a particular side of the work of Nolde who examined the portrait and became fascinated by the duality of masks. On the same day of the sale (dedicated to German and Austrian art) Christie’s generated a record for one of his seascapes (1909): an explosion of colour at the frontier with abstraction entitled Sonnenuntergang which sold for GBP 1.7 million (nearly EUR 2.5 million).
Five months after the Nolde record, Ernst Ludwig KIRCHNER‘s caused an auction sensation: his painting Berliner Strassenszene/Bäume was a leader lot of the Christie’s New York sale on 8 November 2006. An entire 12-page dossier was devoted to the work in the sales catalogue. It was even compared with Picasso’s famous Demoiselles D’Avignon painted five years before Kirchner’s Berlin street scene. The final result measured up handsomely to the expectations of the auctioneer: 34 million dollars for this museum piece, 10 million above its high estimate. That year (2006), Kirchner’s works generated an outstanding total revenue figure of EUR 42.29 million! Fuelled by the exceptional 2006 results, the good health of his price index has continued through 2007 and 2008.

In 2007, the strongest sales revenue figure was generated by Alexej JAWLENSKY von (1864-1941): 12 sales above the million-dollar line and a total revenue of EUR 29.2 million over the year, i.e. 20 million more than in 2005. And 2005 was already a very good year for the artist’s price index. In fact, Sotheby’s generated his record in New York with a flamboyant portrait of Schokko (painted around 1910) that had remained in private hands since its acquisition at the end of the 1960s. The piece fetched USD 7.4 million. But when the new owner saw the spectacular results that Jawlensky’s work was fetching in 2007, he sent the painting back to auction on 5 February 2008 in London where it sold for 9 million dollars more than at the previous transaction (Sotheby’s GBP 8.4 million, or USD 16.5 million).

The London sales of February and June 2008 were both positive for each of the members of the Die Brücke including Kirchner and Nolde, but also for other expressionists like Hermann Max PECHSTEIN, Karl SCHMIDT-ROTTLUFF, Otto MUELLER and Erich HECKEL. In June 2008, Pechstein tripled his low estimate for a circus scene with zebras and camels that sold for the record price of GBP 1.7 million at Sotheby’s (Zirkus mit Dromedaren, USD 3.35 million).

These million-dollar masterpieces are rare however and their buyers are very demanding. Each year, dozens of works are bought in because they do not exude the expressionist spirit. This was the case, for example, of an Otto DIX landscape that was offered for GBP 50,000 at Christie’ in June of this year. The overly ‘classic’ subject matter did not interest anyone… But if you offer buyers a charcoal drawing by the same artists from the same period representing a succubus with hideous features, then the biding will go substantially beyond this kind of price range. The demonic Sitzender Weiblicher Rückenakt that was offered at the Villa Grisebach in May 2008 fetched 180,000 euros although estimated at 50 to 70 thousand euros.

**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

Art as Alternative Investment – artmarketblog.com

Art as Alternative Investment – artmarketblog.com

The interest in alternative investments which are those investments that are not one of the traditional investments such as bonds, stocks, cash, money markets etc. has been on the increase in recent years as people seek safer and more stable alternatives to the highly volatile stock market and money markets. Alternative investments such as art attract even more interest in times like these when the traditional investment routes take a battering and begin to look rather unappealing. The Australian Triple J radio station aired a half hour show on alternative investments today which featured some information and advice on investing in art which was provided by myself. If you would like to listen to the show and hear my advice on collecting and investing in art then visit one of the links below which will open the program in the specified formats (section on art investment is near the end of the program).

Hack Half Hour – Alternative Investments

**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

Gerhard Richter Buy Alert – artmarketblog.com

Gerhard Richter Buy Alert – artmarketblog.com

Ever fancied owning an original artwork by Gerhard Richter?? With Richter being one of the most important post war artists and one of the most expensive living artists it is hard to think of a reason that anyone wouldn’t want one of his works in their collection. If you are thinking that you could never afford an original work by Richter then think again because to celebrate his first solo show in sixteen years which is taking place at the Serpentine Gallery in London, Richter has produced eighty exclusive original works that are being sold thorough the Serpentine Gallery. Each of the eighty works is tltled Quattro Colori and according to the Serpentine gallery website “comprises four coloured squares, drawn from the same palette of 25 colours used in Richter’s 4900 Colours: Version II, the subject of his exhibition at the Serpentine. Like 4900 Colours: Version II, the colours for Quattro Colori have been selected at random, rendering each piece unique.”

Quattro Colori 2008
Enamel Paint on Aludibond and Wood
19.4 x 19.4 cm
Signed and numbered 1 to 80
Each one unique

Price: £12,000 (incl. VAT)

The last couple of years have seen the value of Richter’s work skyrocket as can be seen in the graph to the right which shows a major increase in value since 2007. The auction record for Richter stands at US$15,483,589 for the work Kerze (Candle) which was sold by Sotheby’s at their Contemporary sale on the 27th of February 2008. On the 12th November, Christie’s will auction a major painting by Richter titled Abstraktes Bild (710) in their Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale. According to a press release from Christie’s: “On the heels of a world record price established for Gerhard Richter last season, Christie’s will offer a masterpiece of abstraction by Richter, Abstraktes Bild (710), 1989, (estimate on request).”

At 76 years of age Richter is unlikely to be able to continue producing art for too many more years which is bound to be a factor in the recent increase in the value of his work. Another factor that is likely to have contributed to the increased desirability of Richter’s work is the increased recognition and exposure that Richter has experienced in recent years outside of Europe.

Given the likely unprecedented interest in this Edition, the works which have been reserved for the general public will be available for purchase only in the lobby of the Gallery, in person, on a first-come-first-served basis from 10am on Tuesday 23 September 2008.

For more information, please contact Deborah Bullen, Print Manager, on + 44 (0)20 7298 1511 or for more information go here:
http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2008/07/gerhard_richterquattro_colori.html

image 1:
Quattro Colori 2008
Enamel Paint on Aludibond and Wood
19.4 x 19.4 cm
Signed and numbered 1 to 80
Each one unique

**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

2008 Art Auction Records – artmarketblog.com

2008 Art Auction Records – artmarketblog.com

The art world gurus at artnet.com have compiled a list of new art records set between the 1st of January 2008 and the 30th of June 2008 and ranked according to sale price all the way down to $100,000. According to artnet “Overall, the sprawling list of almost 1,000 new records dramatically reflects the triumphant globalization of the art market. The fall of communism was the best thing that ever happened to the art business, opening up huge new markets of millionaire art collectors. The ranking is filled with “new” names from Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia; sales devoted to Scottish art, Irish art, Scandinavian art and Greek art all had individual works being bought for more than $1 million. The booms in 19th-century American and Victorian art continue, as does the rapid growth of auctions held in Asia and the Mideast. The rise in value also delves into the second and third tiers of familiar art movements, and extends backwards in time as well, including early modernists and 19th-century pioneers.”

To take a look at the top 156 names check out this link which provides the details in a pdf format:
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artmarketwatch/new_art_records_2008.pdf

Thanks artnet !!!

**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