Hockney not the only record breaker in NYC
At Christie’s, Edward Hopper’s classic painting sold for $92m
Now that the dust has settled following the phenomenal $90million (£70million) paid for a David Hockney painting in New York, some patterns from last week’s marathon Modern and Contemporary Art sales are beginning to emerge.
The first is that, even though the Hockney was one of many record prices broken, the total $2.06 billion (£1.6 billion) for the whole week barely met the predicted minimum and it remained about 24 per cent below the 2015 peak for this bellwether series. So things were blowing both hot and cold.
In the Impressionist market, for instance, Chinese buyers have been upping the stakes in recent years. But last week, perhaps because of the economic slowdown in China, they didn’t make so much of an impact. In the opening sales they had guaranteed two of the top lots by Monet and, as there was no competition, ended up buying them below estimates for $16million (£12.5million) and $32million. Elsewhere, they were bidding for modern artists not previously associated with Chinese taste such as Jean Arp, René Magritte, Egon Schiele and Wassily Kandinsky, but pulled out early. The Magritte, a portrait of the eccentric collector Edward James, went on to make a record $28million none the less. Another restraining factor was a tendency to agree over-optimistic reserve prices and estimates. Three of the most highly valued lots – by Van Gogh, estimated at over $40million, Picasso, $15million plus, and the American, Marsden Hartley, $30million plus – were all unsold.
However, in the most buoyant sectors of the sales, demand was more home-grown and record estimates were met with record prices. These included, for instance, a higher proportion of early- to mid-20th century American modernists than usual. Although these artists are normally presented to a predominantly American audience in separate American sales, Christie’s was handling the sale of the American art collection of the late luxury travel supremo Barney Ebsworth, which was jam-packed with lesser-known modernists, as well as some internationally renowned artists, and they weren’t going to split them up.
A De Kooning painting, for example, had international clout and sold for a record $66million (£51million), while Chop Suey, a classic painting by Edward Hopper of two women at a table in a restaurant at night, outpriced even the Hockney with a record $92million. Hopper has rarely, if ever, appeared in the international modern and contemporary art auction series, but that could now change.
Certainly, with the establishment of a score of new records in six and seven figures for lesser-known artists such as Patrick Henry Bruce, Charles Green Shaw, Francis Criss and Suzy Frelinghuysen, American modernism was emphatically awarded its place in the sun. As were an increasing number of African-american artists. It’s a trend we highlighted when Tate Modern staged its Soul of a Nation exhibition last year. Artists of African descent, such as Jean-michel Basquiat or David Hammons, have long been recognised by the international market, but the list is growing like Jack’s proverbial Beanstalk.
While most African-american artists had previously been sold at New York’s Swann auctions, more are now graduating to Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips, where higher prices are being achieved. This spring, the trend was capped when Kerry James Marshall’s Past Times was bought by rapper Sean Combs (Puff Daddy) for $21.1 million. Last week, records tumbled for at least another eight – notably Jacob Lawrence’s 1947 painting The Businessmen, which tackled racial discrimination in the business community in a semi-cubistic style. It was the first time a painting by Lawrence had been offered in a Contemporary Art Evening Auction and it sold for a triple-estimate
$6.2 million (£4.8 million).
As a measure of the rate at which some of the artists are accruing in value, an atmospheric abstract painting by Sam Gilliam which was bought in 2003 for about $5,000, sold for $2.2 million; and for Robert Colescott, whose ascent is just beginning, a satirical figurative painting bought 12 years ago for $22,500 sold for $750,000 (£584,000).
Far from the fly-by-night sudden changes in value that characterise the contemporary art market, these changes in value look broadly backed, and everyone is wondering – who will be next to step on to the ladder?