May 2012

In the month of June, there will be several good auctions.  Sotheby’s will have a Fine Books and Manuscripts auction that will be happening on June 15th in New York City to their Impressionist and Modern Art action happening on June 20th in London.  This will be an interesting sale that I will look forward to.  I am not going to lie and say I know a lot about Fine Books and Manuscripts.  I LOVE to read, and I know which books that I would consider a good book and which ones I would not…like right now I’m reading Emile Zola’s Nana, which I’ve just started reading, and I know a few things to look for in a book to see if it is at least considered an okay or good book…but until further notice, I will say that I know nothing in regards to having the ability to say what a book is worth and what it is not.

Yet another sale that Sotherby’s will be doing on Wednesday, June 20th in London will be their Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale (34-35 New Bond Street London W1A 2AA) at 10:30am and 2:30pm. This sale includes work by Jean Arp (from 1960 to ’65) and surrealist Joan Miro (later works, 1970, 1978 and others) to Henri Matisse, Max Ernst and Salvador Dali.

The one constant in the works that Sotheby’s is auctioning off is that the works are by the artist in their later life, not when they were in their prime.  These works seem to be, for the most part (excluding works like Dali’s La Maison Surrealiste c. 1949) as the artist are on their way out or right before they pass. Yes, there is a market for these works, a grim look on life, seeing an artist’s last grasp at something that they were at one point in time renowned for, however when Joan Miro, a surrealist (which had their day from the mid 1920s (some say as early as 1922 with ManRay others when the first Surrealist Manifesto of either 1924 and yet others in the year 1929, that is why I say the Mid 1920s), having his work from 1970 (the work I’m referring to is Tete [Sale Lot #116] which was executed on the 31st of March, 1970), almost 50 years since the Surrealist movement had had it’s day and only 13 years before Miro died, can be appealing to some people, to own the last bit of history of an artist.

However, I remember watching a documentary, I don’t know if it was from the Tate Modern or had a retired curator from the Tate that stated even Andy Warhol, who most consider one of two of the greatest artist of the 20th century, if not the greatest, as well as one of the five artist that changed art forever, couldn’t get an exhibition in the last years of his life, that actually when Warhol passed on, the Tate had been taking steps and scheduled an exhibition of his work, his first one in over five years (and if I am wrong on this, either way far off or if there was another exhibition that came closer to his death than this one that was in the works, please let me know and comment) or longer as he had been all but forgotten about outside of the work that he had done in the late 1950s to the early 1960s.

That is the way that it happens with art.  As the artist grow older and their work no longer fits into the world around it (as Miro’s work Tete was done in the Pop Art era, when screen printing and BenDay Dots were all of the rave), the work can be seen as the artist doing what he/she loves the most, which is art for art’s sake.  For the most part, their work is not being sold for what it was (Example that Tete has an estimated value of $243,000-324,000 and Salvador Dali’s Deesse De La Pluie [Sale Lot #119] is estimated at $40,500-57,000, a price fare less than work created in their prime) can bring the buy to sure that they might be buying a beautiful piece of work, but the price is there namely for the sake of the the artist who created it, and nothing more.

To see the works up for sale, including the catalogue notes and the provenance on the auction, please go to the Sotheby’s Auction Website or to see the exact works that I reference in this article, please visit the following:

Joan Miro’s Tete

Salvador Dali’s Deesse De La Pluie

May 2012

 

After bit of time off for an observation of what happened in the art world, I’m back. I had a post I was going to do about The Scream (of Nature) (Edvard Munch, c. 1893) a day before, but unfortunately I didn’t get it up in time and the sale just blew me away.  $119.9M for the piece is mind blowing.  The Scream is a fantastic piece of work and yes there are four total copies of the work that had been done, but the work that went up for auction at Sotheby’s Auctions was the last one still held in private hands.  This painting was the highest price paid for a painting in auction (not to get confused with the 2011 private sale ofThe Cardplayers by Paul Cezanne that went for an estimated $250-$300M). The price for a single piece of this nature is amazing. If the work is worth that much or not, I’ll let the reader decide, however I have no doubt in my mind that it is the most recognizable piece of Expressionistic art work in the world.

However, the sale of Photographs at Christie’s this month that included works by David LaChapelle (two of them) that sold for what I thought they would, both reasonably priced for a former student of the great Andy Warhol.

Some other artist hit new personal best though thus far, including the likes of Jackson Pollock. This is one artist and his work that I would like to touch on for a second.  Paul Jackson Pollock and his “drip” style paintings are amazing.  I have tried in my own work to pay tribute to Pollock with my own gestural movements and did everything I could think of when it came to all of my past research on him.  The thing is that even though the painting (which later came out to be a photograph in it’s final form) was good but no close to what Mr. Pollock could do.  I later talked to the model, who was a painting student at the time at a local art school about Pollock and she said that she hated him, but couldn’t give me an actual reason why. 

I bring this up for one simple reason.  How can you hate this artist?  The piece that sold at Christie’s was Number 28, 1951, for a price of $23,042,500 (Lot #22). The piece has everything a person could want in an Ab Ex work.  It has beautiful expressionistic colors, the layering is fantastic, The gestural strokes are both beautiful and horrific at the same time.  Pollock shows in this one piece why he is considered one of the five artist (with artist like Manet, Warhol, Caravaggio and Leonardo) who changed the art world forever.  Why is his work only now seeing this type of numbers?  Yes, Pollock only lived a short time, and his work really only ranged for the better part of ten years, but with more and more of his work being in either museums or in the hands or the Krasner/Pollock Foundation, the privately held pieces should be going up so much higher and quicker when they are up on the market, especially as rare as they are seen on the market today. I would say that this is a great buy for the piece, since it was on the low end of Christie’s estimated range, and if the buyer holds onto it, he/she will see a great return on the piece if they so choose to sale it in the future.

For more on this sale, please visit the Christie’s website.

Now for this month.  There are a couple of sales that I am excited about. Christie’s sale 4225: Masters of Italian Photography 1945-1975 from the Collection of Paolo Morello coming up on June 12th, 2012.  I have had a chance to look over the catalog and I will say that this collection if very impressive.  The prices on average are around the $10-$12k range, which for the beauty alone should be worth it. However, even for the history buff that is out there, the time frame of these images, shot right after the Second World War, would be amazing.  To see a country build it self back up, to see the beauty in the world that has been known for it romance, the beautiful blacks and whites of each image, they are just amazing.  They would remind anyone, I feel safe to say, of their ideal romantic Italian getaway, showing how beautiful the country is and documenting a great 30 years of the Italian life. I would say that anyone who is fortunate enough to own one of these images will be lucky to have a great piece of photography in their position and the value should go up over time as well.

Enjoy.

 

April 2012

This month’s sales:

With the recent sale at Christie’s Auction House of their prints seemed to go as they predicted. However, there is one sale that I am shocked by. That is the sale of Richard Hamilton’s piece titled Swingeing London III. It went for slightly over the est. price at $74K. However, Hamilton is a fantastic artist. He is not only credited around the world as one of the founders of Pop Art (or according to the Guardian Newspaper when Mr. Hamilton passed away, the Father of Pop art) but also went through and, at least in my mind, gave birth to modern art in Europe after World War II. He brought art back to a part of the world that was devastated by a war that was actually fueled by art and “purifying” the art world. As I watched this work sale, I was surprised that it didn’t come closer to the $100K mark if not exceed it. Whoever was the lucky buyer of this 1972 screen print got one hell of a deal. I feel that even though Pop Art came to the world only a short 65 or so years ago, that work by Mr. Hamilton will for certain increase in price as time moves on. My suggestion, hold on to this work for 20 years at least. By that time, I promise you will see all of your money returned back to you if you choose to sale it plus a possible $20-$30K added on to the final selling price. His work will be seen as a high collector’s item in years to come, if it is continued to be kept in excellent condition.

Next Month’s Sales.
In May, Christie’s is going to have a massive sale. They’re titling it Impressionist and Modern Art, however, from their online catalogue it appears to be mostly impressionistic to surrealism, and it is artwork done by some of the biggest names in those movements, from Dali to Manet, Pissarro to Matisse and Picasso. The each piece in the lot itself is priced on average over a three million in est. sales price with one huge exception. The work by Camille Pissarro titled Vaches s’abreuvant dans un ruisseau, Osny is undervalued. This piece is signed and dated in 1886 by Pissarro himself in the lower left hand corner.

The reason why I see this as undervalued is because Pissarro if a fantastic painter, just as good as Monet, Manet, Degas and other of the Impressionistic movement. With those, what you are buying is the name. With Pissarro, you are buying the work since his name is often overshadowed by before named artist. His work can stem between the Impressionistic to Post Impressionistic movements. His work is simply beautiful. The example of loose brushwork is second to none and the color choice in the painting is gorgeous with bright, almost pastel colors. The subject matter of this painting is a little off from what the norm is for the Impressionists of leaguer instead being a lady with four cows, two of which are drinking from a stream. It is an example of a Realism subject matter painted in Impressionism form.

My personal thoughts are that if the buyer of this piece can get this work under or at the low end of the est. sales price of $500,000 to $700,000 that is a great buy. This work will see its day at the seven figure mark and is a great example of an Impression Masterpiece for anyone’s collection. The only question I have is that Christies has the provenance for this piece dating back to the 1950s when it was bought by the current owner. That can be over looked however since it is signed and dated by the artist, but the history of the piece would be something to look into and to verify the signature on the piece itself. Other than that, the piece is a fantastic one.

This lot is scheduled for auction on May 1st of 2012, auction to start at 7pm, with a sale number of 2554 and lot number 26.