The Digital Age
Auction houses made the best of the pandemic by bringing bidders online. It bodes well for the future of the market.
Our headline for last year’s auction directory is hilarious in hindsight: “Hammer Time: With high sales and numerous world records throughout 2019, auction houses are looking forward to an exciting 2020.”
I don’t think anyone could blame us for the headline. Things were looking up then, and no one—least of all an art magazine—could have predicted the excruciating surprises that 2020 would deliver.
As the pandemic started pecking away at the 2020 calendar—museums closed, galleries pushed openings, sales were cancelled—the leading auction houses prepared to have the bottom fall out of the market. They waited for the worst as all signs seemed to be pointing toward a very bad spring, summer and fall.
But it never came.
Instead what they found were collectors who were already comfortable with viewing art, placing
bids and making purchases—all of it online. In a push to make auctions friendlier for bidders of all stripes, auction houses had pumped huge amounts of money into their platforms, including live viewing, realtime sales feeds, interactive bidding and phone apps, as well as a suite of features to accompany them, including high-resolution viewing options for the artwork, virtual gallery walkthroughs and 360-degree views of sculpture. These features had been quietly expanding for years before 2020, so when the pandemic shifted events away from in-person gatherings, the market was ready.
Couple all of that with collectors who are spending more time in their homes pondering the empty spaces on their walls, the boredom that comes with isolation and the strength of the artwork being brought to the market and it’s easy to see how and why auctions had a stronger-than-anticipated year.
(Now, it must also be said here that art galleries and museums have used these same online features to bring quarantined patrons and collectors into their online spaces to participate in art events. And they’ve even gone a step further by using Zoom and other video platforms to offer another layer of interactivity.)
The 2020 auction season started with several sales that were largely untouched by events in the world, including Brian Lebel’s
Mesa Old West Show & Sale in Mesa, Arizona, in January. March, though, would not pass unscathed, with The Russell being postponed from its usual spring slot to a date in the fall in Great Falls, Montana. March in Montana, also held in Great Falls in March, did go through with its sale, although without a live audience. It still racked up $1.8 million in sales, its second highest total in the auction’s history. It also set a new world auction record for William Standing, who was represented in the sale with the work The Last Chase (est. $25/35,000) that sold for $118,000. That same month also saw a successful Bonhams
California & Western Art sale in Los Angeles that realized $2.6 million in sales. Highlights there were three Frederic Remington bronzes, including a $437,000 Broncho Buster, that brought in a combined $662,000.
April saw a huge postponement as the
Scottsdale Art Auction abandoned its normal spring date as the shutdown grew more widespread in the country. First the sale was changed to May, then bumped again to June. Auction partner Brad Richardson was hesitant holding the sale in Arizona’s tripledigit summer temperatures, but he risked bumping it too far into the year. He and his partners, Michael Frost and Jack Morris, were between a rock and a hard place. With the rescheduled auction bearing down on them, the partners supported the sale with a massive marketing campaign to make sure bidders knew about the new date. When the hammer started slamming on June 13, the early numbers looked promising.
“We had 150 people or so in the room, which is low for us, but we had a much larger presence on the internet and on the phones,” Richardson says of the sale. “And we ended up doing extremely well, hitting almost $11 million with 93 percent of the lots sold. And we had active bidding throughout. Of course, we’ll never know what the sale could have done without the pandemic—maybe it
was a $12 million sale, or even a $14 million sale—but considering the way it could have gone, we were very pleased. It gives me a lot of hope for the future, though I do think it will be interesting to see how bidders feel about bidding on art they’ve never seen in person before. When the pandemic is over, I think collectors will want to return to events because that part is important to them.” Highlights from the Scottsdale Art Auction included William R. Leigh’s Pony
Express (est. $600/900,000) that sold for $680,000, Maynard Dixon’s Neolithic
Afternoon (est. $500/700,000) that sold for $526,000, a Remington bronze that sold for $438,000 and Allan Houser’s Lament (est. $60/90,000) that sold for $105,000, an artist world record.
May featured a John Moran Auctioneers’
California & American Art, which sold William Herbert “Buck” Dunton’s Mexican
Vaqueros Roping Brown Bears for $250,000. Also that month was an Altermann Galleries & Auctioneers sale that saw some notable results, including Ed Mell’s Pink Rose (est.
$25/35,000) that sold for $40,000. In June, Hindman produced some big numbers with its annual Arts of the American West sale in Denver. Highlights from the $1.7 million auction included Henry Shrady’s bronze
Buffalo (est. $18/24,000) that soared to $68,000, Martin Grelle’s A Warrior’s Pride
(est. $20/40,000) that sold for $52,000, and Bill Anton’s Montana Monarchs (est. $10/15,000) that sold for $47,000.
The Coeur d’alene Art Auction was held in July on its usual date in Reno, Nevada, and like earlier 2020 auctions, the sale performed strongly by achieving $11 million. Thomas Moran’s Green River,
Wyoming (est. $1/1.5 million) sold for $1.6 million, Victor Higgins’ New Mexico Zinnias
(est. $200/300,000) sold for $416,000, Ernest L. Blumenschein’s White Sun (est. $150/250,000) sold for $357,000 and Charles M. Russell works collectively sold for $600,000.
“Now that the election is over, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of consignment interest for 2021. That, and the hope the Covid situation will be under control by late spring/early summer has us quite optimistic for our July sale. Buyer interest has been very high throughout and we’ve cultivated quite a few new collectors at the middle- to high-end of the market which is a very good sign,” says Mike Overby, auction partner at Coeur d’alene Art Auction.
“It seems most collectors are comfortable using the online platforms now and this will continue to grow. However, everyone seems to be eager to attend live, in person sales in 2021. We will continue to make
Coeur d’alene the premier, live event for the Western art world while complementing the auction with online options. Making the entire collecting experience convenient and streamlined for our clients is our focus and we will continue to update our systems to provide the best service regardless of bidding preference.”
The summer brought other strong sales, including several online-only sales from Heritage Auctions, which saw fantastic examples of Western art in its American, illustration and Texas auctions. Alissa Ford, director of Western art at Heritage, is pleased with 2020 and is already looking ahead. “I am quite optimistic as we approach 2021. We weren’t certain how the art market would stand up to the events of 2020 but what we discovered is that many people have turned to art during this time of isolation,” she says. “We have seen an increase of inquiries from the seller’s side because so many people are home with more time on their hands to look through their items. Fresh-to-market pieces are hitting the auction place and we have seen a tremendous uptick in online bidding. Heritage Auctions has always had a robust online presence with a strong online bidding platform which has been most useful to our collectors in 2020. We have also implemented previews and marketwatch discussions via Zoom with Heritage Auctions’ experts. Our clients rely and trust our specialists so we have been able to guide them through the bidding process on specific works of art. The art market is currently strong and alive and I suspect we will see this trend through 2021. Art lives deep within us all; it is art and creativity that is vital to our being when we are stripped from the chaos and distractions of everyday life.”
By fall 2020, it was clear that auctions and bidders alike were growing accustomed to the new health protocols within the country and were adapting to purchasing art online. The Russell, rescheduled to September 12, brought in $4.8 million in sales, with a Russell work selling for $1.3 million; and the Jackson Hole Art Auction, which went to an online-only format, set several world records and realized $5.2 million, with a Moran selling for $946,000. Deeper into fall, Santa Fe Art Auction’s
Signature Annual Auction brought in $2.5 million and Christie’s rescheduled T. Boone Pickens sale shattered expectations with $20.4 million in sales. (Read the full reports on these sales in this issue.)
“It was a phenomenal sale,” says Tylee Abbott, Christie’s Western specialist. “On behalf of the Pickens camp I was watching the Western market very closely, doing analytics on competitors’ sales and making sure we were planning the sale for the right time. The Western market has held up quite respectably.”
There still remains the question, as Richardson suggested, of what these sales would have done without Covid. It’s agonizing to think about because 2020 was expected to be a banner year.
There is one certainty, though, and that is that Western art will weather the storm and come out stronger on the other end.
The Autry is a museum dedicated to exploring and sharing the stories, experiences and perceptions of the diverse peoples of the American West, connecting the past to the present to inspire our shared future. Located in beautiful Griffith Park, the Autry features world-class galleries filled with art and artifacts from across the American West.
The museum also presents a wide range of exhibitions and public programs—including lectures, film, theatre, festivals, family events and music—and performs scholarship, research and educational outreach.
The Autry’s collection of more than 500,000 pieces of art and artifacts includes the Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection, one of the largest and most significant in the United States. Autry shows, such as the annual Masters of the
American West, showcase and promote artists who capture the spirit of the American West.
Since its beginning in
1998, this signature Autry exhibition has grown in excellence, prominence, and prestige, highlighting works by the country’s best contemporary Western artists. The paintings and sculptures feature landscapes, seascapes, wildlife, historical themes and other subject matter inspired by the American West. Masters
of the American West is up from February 27 through April 11 and will present new works by 62 artists. A sale of miniature works begins online on February 27, and the sale of artwork in the main gallery will be done by random draw on March 13. Participating artists include Autumn Borts-medlock, George Carlson, Len Chmiel, Dennis Doheny, Tammy Garcia, Logan Maxwell Hagege, Doug Hyde, Steve Kestrel, Mark Maggiori, Kyle Polzin and Grant Redden.
New artists include Brett Allen Johnson, Joshua Larock and Ed Mell. Please check the museum’s website for updates on how to purchase and for more details about the exhibition and sale.