You have a Picasso? Ha! I’ve just bought two
LONDON — Lot 25 in the Christie’s auction, Looking Forward to the Past, in New York next month is likely to excite a lot of interest for one simple reason, and it’s not its historical significance nor even the universal fame of its creator. It’s all about the price tag.
Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger ( Version “O”), painted in 1955 in homage to French artist Henri Matisse, is expected to break the US$142-million record for a painting sold at auction when it goes under the hammer. If so, it will confirm that the top end of the art market has gone completely crazy.
The week before, Sotheby’s will sell Van Gogh’s L’allee des Alyscamps with an estimate of $40 million, and Roy Lichtenstein’s The Ring (Engagement) with an estimate of $50 million.
“The prices of so many of these artworks are disproportionate to their art historical importance,” says Josh Spero, the editor of Spear’s, a magazine that caters to the yacht-owning, Picasso-aspiring classes.
“It’s all about ‘my Giacometti is bigger than your Giacometti’ now. Will you really get $140 million worth of pleasure from it? I doubt it. But you know you had to outbid three U.S. hedge fund managers and a Russian oligarch to secure it.”
In some ways, nothing has changed. A series of auctions in the mid-’80s saw huge sums handed over for Picassos, Cezannes and Van Goghs. Back then, the bidders wore black ties and worked on behalf of Japanese banks. Now, evening dress isn’t worn and the buyers are from Dubrovnik to Dubai and beyond. But, 30 years apart, both are seeking not pictures but status symbols.
In recent years, however, as the number of global rich has increased, so too has the size of the luxury goods market — stretching both upward and downward. For every Les Femmes d’Alger, there are thousands of designer handbags, exquisite pieces of jade, collections of rare stamps and vintage cars. So-called alternative investments have boomed over the past five years. In this period, the FTSE all-share index of stocks increased by 31 per cent, but according to Knight Frank, the estate agency, the value of watches has increased by 49 per cent, art by 61 per cent, diamonds by 73 per cent and vintage cars by 140 per cent.
The first Conde Naste Luxury Conference — a sellout — opened Tuesday in Florence. The organizers claim that “emerging markets with new-found spending power, are redefining what ‘luxury’ means.”
It is not just the large number of very rich people — especially Russians and Chinese — that has helped swell the variety of status symbols available. It has also been caused by the double whammy of wafer-thin interest rates in the U.S. and Europe, making it impossible to earn a return on savings, and the slump in the euro zone, leaving few areas for investors to place their cash.