For the art world, 2017 will be
remembered for the new all-time-high price for a work of art when a work by Leonardo
da Vinci sold for $450.3 million at Christie’s, smashing the previous auction record
of $179.4 million for Pablo Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger (Version “O”) in 2015,
and significantly above the $300 million reportedly paid in a private
transaction by billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin for Willem de
Kooning’s Interchange, also in 2015.
But the year will also be remembered as
a revival for the Impressionist and Modern Art market.
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| Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Laboureur dans un champ’ |
The
Return of the Impressionists
In November, eager bidding for Vincent
van Gogh’s ‘Laboureur dans un champ’ at Christie’s New York evening sale of
Impressionist and Modern masters drove the final bid to $81.3 million, including
buyer’s commission, $1.2 million shy of the all-time-auction-record achieved for
the artist at the height of the so-called “Impressionist bubble,” when Japanese
industrialist Ryoei Saito bought ‘Portrait of Doctor Gachet’ in 1990 for $82.5
million.
“While the Laboureur is very pretty and
important, it’s not a first-class painting and absolutely not in the category
than Doctor Gachet in terms of historic importance, so the fact that it’s just
shy of that mega piece is really indicative of the market rising,” explains
Ralph Taylor, Global Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art at Bonhams.
Overall, Christie’s evening sale brought
in $479.32 million, a 95% increase year-on-year, with world records set for
Fernand Leger ($70.06 million), Rene Magritte ($20.56 million) and Edouard
Vuillard ($17.75 million), making it the auction house’s highest grossing
impressionist sale in a decade. Christie’s Head of Department Max Carter credited
the result to the “freshness” of the works being offered, while Head of Sale
Jessica Fertig pointed out as the top 10 works had all sold for above $10
million it underscored “the strength in the market and the confidence of the
buyers.”
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| Chagall’s Le Grand Cirque |
The following night, Sotheby’s sale of
Impressionist and Modern Art totalled $269.6 million, up 71% over the November
2016 auction, with a Chagall work selling for $28.5 million, smashing a decades-long
auction record for the artist. However, some of the results also gave a
sobering picture of the slowing of the category over the last 10 years:
Chagall’s Le Grand Cirque, which sold for $16 million to an Asian collector had
last achieved $13.8 million at auction in 2007, while Monet’s Les Arceaux de
roses, Giverny, which sold for $19.4 million had last achieved $17.8 million in
2007.
Taylor notes that Asian collectors had
been particularly aggressive in the Impressionist sale. “For the Asian buyers,
quality is very important and there were some very good paintings offered that
week. This emphasis on quality is really important. They are not looking to buy
a bargain or speculate, they are far more interested in established figures. So
when you are able to get your hands on an ‘A’ piece you know there will be an
appetite from an Asian collector, more than was the case five years ago,”
Taylor explains.
Tellingly last November, Christie’s picked Hong Kong as the first place worldwide to unveil some
highlights of the renowned Peggy and David Rockefeller Collection that will
come at auction in New York this Spring, including a Picasso nude from his
“Rose Period,” which carries an estimate of $70 million, a Nympheas painting by
Claude Monet, and what is considered the most important work by Henri Matisse
to be offered on the market in a generation, likely to set a new world record
for the artist.
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| Pablo Picasso, Fillette à la corbeille fleurie (1905). |
“The
launch in Asia makes sense,” says Marc Porter, Chairman of Christie’s Americas,
“Asia is one of the most important regions for collectors of Impressionist and Modern
paintings. For Christie’s it is a recognition of the importance to us of our
client base in Asia.”
A Recovering Market
After several years of tremendous
growth, the art market experienced a serious correction in 2016, weighed down by
political and economic uncertainties, from the UK Brexit vote to an economic
slowdown in China and the surprise US presidential election. Christie’s overall
sales fell 16% to £4 billion ($5.4 billion), while Sotheby’s reported a 27%
decline to $4.9 billion. But 2017 brought renewed enthusiasm for the art market.
Half-year sales for 2017 at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips were up $1.08
billion on the same period in 2016, and the momentum continued in the second
half of the year.
Christie’s Fall Auction series in New
York achieved $1.42 billion in one week, which, even without the sale of the
Leonardo da Vinci, compared favourably with the $620.2 million achieved for the
equivalent series in 2016.
Grégoire Billault, Head of Sotheby’s
Contemporary Art Department in New York, noted that as a signal of a robust
market, many clients had been willing to part with works that had been in their
collections for decades, such as a Mao by Warhol, which had been in a private
European collection since 1972, and was sold to an Asian collector for $32.4
million.
Asia’s
Changing Tastes
Having first focussed on Chinese art and
then expanding to Asian artists, Chinese collectors have moved out of their
comfort zone in recent years and embraced impressionists as well as Contemporary
Western Art.
“The way Asian collectors have changed
their buying habits over the last five years is very substantial. What we saw
five years ago was relatively inexperienced buying, which was driven by taste.
But over the years, the buying has become more and more sophisticated and the
level of knowledge has grown hugely. That has naturally led to a
diversification of buying, which has affected our sales significantly,” says Taylor.
Encouraged by Asian buyers’ increased
activity at its auctions in New York and London, Sotheby’s Hong Kong started to
offer Western contemporary art in its evening sale last year, while Christie’s
complemented its Hong Kong Fall auction series for the second time with The
Loaded Brush, a private selling exhibition offering works by Monet, Matisse and
Rothko that in previous years would have been sold in New York or London. In
2016, Phillips also debuted its first contemporary art auction in Hong Kong.
According to the 2017 Billionaires
Report compiled by UBS and PwC, there are now 16 Asian billionaires ranking on
ARTnews’ “Top 200 Collectors” list compared with just one in 2006. To tap this
growing buying power, a number of top Western galleries are opening outposts in
Greater China. This year, David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth will open galleries
in Hong Kong, while Lévy Gorvy is planning to open an office space in Shanghai.
Importantly, Taylor remarks, auction
houses and western galleries are now bringing top Western Contemporary artworks
to the region, and expanding beyond the well-recognized brand names of Damien
Hirst or Jeff Koons to offer more exclusive artworks: “Now galleries are
bringing artists from their core rostra, bringing the best and most challenging
works. They equate the appetite of what they do at Art Basel Hong Kong with
what they do at Art Basel in Basel.”
A longer version of this article appeared in ROBB REPORT January 2018