Expectations were low and nerves on edge ahead of Christie’s 20/21 evening sale in London today, which fetched £51.7m (£63.8m with fees) from 66 lots , down two-thirds from the equivalent sale last year and below its pre-sale estimate of £55.2-80.8 million.
Auction specialists acknowledged the current climate of a falling market, but stressed that “London is lively and vibrant”, as Giovanna Bertazzoni put it. The deputy chairman of the 20th and 21st Century department has denied Brexit was a factor in the shortage of shipments over £5million in the UK capital. “It’s not a lack of confidence in London because of Brexit, it’s more market fatigue,” she adds.
London-based art adviser Nilani Trent notes that sellers are aware that sales have “slowed considerably” and that private sales “are more attractive than taking a risk at auction”. Basically, “it’s gotten harder to find masterpieces,” she says.
A masterpiece is in the eye of the beholder, and the first two batches of the sale were very distinct in every way imaginable. One, a 1984 portrait of Picasso by Jean-Michel Basquiat, went to the Nahmad family for £5.4m (£6.5m with costs) following a short battle auction with Acquavella Galleries, which drew a small ripple of applause in the auction room as it concluded.
Christie’s evening sales manager Tessa Lord acknowledged the painting was not the “definition of fresh in the market”, having last been sold at Christie’s in 2007 to an unnamed Italian collector. “But, on the Basquiat market, it’s [fresh]given how quickly it was moved,” she adds.
by Paul Signac Calanque de Canoubier (Pointe de Bamer)(1896)
Courtesy of Christie’s
The other major lot of the afternoon was the soft landscape of Paul Signac, Calanque de Canoubier (Pointe de Bamer)painted in 1896. The canvas, which cost £6.7m (£8m with fees; est £5.5m to £8m) Olivier Camu, Christie’s Vice-President for Impressionist and Modern Art in London, had been the subject of a recent legal dispute-now settled-on its title. He came to the block with a last-minute, third-party guarantee; it is one of seven lots to have found backers in the 48 hours preceding the sale.
The painting’s appearance is perhaps most remarkable for an auction usually reserved for works created in the 20th and 21st centuries. A number of other earlier and impressionist works that have crept in include a dynamic Van Gogh drawing of washerwomen dated 1885, which sold for £1.2m (£1.5m with fees; est. £1.2m to £1.8m), and a self-portrait of Degas made in 1855 when the artist was only 21 years old. It exceeds its high estimate of £350,000 for £440,000 (£554,400 including costs). According to Hugo Nathan, of Beaumont Nathan art, collectors are turning to established names because “the heat has come out of this very speculative contemporary market”.
A sweet portrait of a seated woman by Renoir from 1886, meanwhile, was one of two lots to be picked up before the sale.
Overall, the auction achieved a very respectable 92% sell-through, although several key works sold at steep discounts. A gilded porcelain sculpture by Louise Bourgeois hammered £450,000 from a low estimate of £800,000; by Howard Hodgkin The spectator (1984-87) went for £590,000 (estimated at £800,000 – £1.2m); and an oil and graphite work on canvas by Cy Twombly sold for £1.2m against a low estimate of £2m.
Contrary to popular thought, the market does not always react to new materials. Among the unsold works – and one of the biggest disappointments of the day – was a photorealistic landscape by Gerhard Richter, estimated at £4-6million. Acquired directly from the artist by the consignee in 1975, the work has just left the walls of the Kunstmuseum Bonn where it has been on long-term loan since 2001. Lord maintains that Richter “continues to be one of the most requested today”, but suggests that this painting represents a part of the German artist’s work “which has room for development and growth”. The works of Otto Mueler, Pierre Bonnard, Carl Andre and Sam Gilliam have not found a home either.
Fair-tigue meets auction exhaustion
Usually active, American and Asian bidders were conspicuously absent from tonight’s sale, which was “quite European in identity”, Lord says, noting that fewer specialists came from Asia. The buyers were “mostly European”, adds Bertazzoni. Bidding came from Brussels, Spain, Italy, France and Germany, a Christie’s spokeswoman confirmed. For the past two years, Christie’s has held auctions from London to Paris back-to-back but, now that travel restrictions have been fully lifted, that format is apparently a thing of the past.
Nathan suggests that US buyers in particular are “exhausted” after the “weight of the New York auctions” last month. He adds: “Christie’s put all their eggs in the basket in New York, they had big sales in New York. There is an argument that they could have withheld something for London, but I think everyone wanted to hurry.”
He notes how the global rise in interest rates caused the market to contract, especially in the first six months of this year. “The conservative defensive strategy is to put everything in the big New York auctions, and also go with guarantees,” adds Nathan. “The thing is, when the land guarantees with the guarantors, there are far fewer guarantors available the following season, and without the third-party guarantors, the auction houses struggle to get the material.”
Nevertheless, its competitor Sotheby’s succeeded in obtaining the material for last night sale, notably in the form of a quirky but impeccably marketed Gustav Klimt painting, which sold for £85.3m (including fees) – a record auction price in Europe. Crucially, he was guaranteed at a level likely to be around his £65million estimate.
In a rare moment of collegiality between the houses, Bertazzoni says the result is “a big vote of confidence” in London, adding: “There is a feeling that London is not what it used to be, but everyone wants whatever. There is absolutely this will to continue.”
