Auction Market Analysis Fall 2013

1. NEW YORK  Next month we will see the return of some big Warhol’s to the market. A liz and silver car crash at Sotheby’s; Christie’s leads with a Coca Cola bottle among six other million-dollar pieces in the evening sale. Liz, Car Crash and Coke all have good shots as making this list and changing the order. But before that happens, let’s update what is one of the more popular posts on Art Market Monitor:
1. Eight Elvises (1963) – $100m   In October 2008, Warhol’s Eight Elvises painting was sold in a private sale via French art consultant Philippe Ségalot for a price of $100 million, a record for
Warhol’s work.
2. Turquoise Marilyn (1964) – $80m  In May 2007 the painting, one of Warhol’s several portraits of Marilyn Monroe, was purchased by art collector Stephen A. Cohen in a private sale from
Dtefan Edlis via Larry Gagosian for a price believed to be $80 million.
3. Green car Crash (Burning Green Car 1) (1963) – $71.7m   Also in May 2007, this painting was sold at a Christie’s auction in New York for a then-record auction price of $71.7 million to art
collector Philip Niarchos, son of the Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos.
4. Men In Her Life (1962) – $63.4m  In 2010 the black and white portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, pictured with both her third husband Mike Todd and future husband Eddie Fisher, sold to an
anonymous buyer at a New York Phillips de Pury & Co auction for $63.4 million. The work was consigned by the Mugrabi family.
5. 200 One Dollar Bills (1962) – $43.8m  In November 2009 the painting was sold at a Sotheby’s auction to an anonymous buyer for $43.8 million. It was sold by London-based art collector
Pauline Karpidas, who had purchased the work in 1986 for a mere $385,000.
6. Statue of Liberty (1962) — $43.8m  Christie’s sold this 3D version of the Statue of Liberty in November of 2012.
7.  Four Marilyns (1962) — $38.245m Phillips scored with this Mugrabi work in the Spring of 2013 which was bought by a dealer who works for Gagosian Gallery.
8. Double Elvis (Ferus Type) — $37m  This Sotheby’s lot sold in the Spring of 2012 but the second registration of the image was so faint that one wag called it Elvis 1.1
9. Coca Cola [4] (Large Coca Cola) – $35.36m  The painting sold in November 2010 at a Sotheby’s auction in New York for a price of $35.36 million to Steven Cohen who seemed to have gotten a
bargain at the time.
10. Self Portrait (1986) – $32.5m In May 2010 the large self-portrait by Warhol, painted in 1986 just a year before his death, was sold in a Sotheby’s sale in New York for $32.56 million.
The original list was compiled here: Top 10: Andy Warhol Paintings

2.NEW YORK (AFP).- The last of four in a series of Andy Warhol paintings depicting car crashes shattered the pop artist's auction record Wednesday, selling for more than $105 million, Sotheby's said. Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), signed and a part of his 1963 Death and Disasters series, fetched $105,445,000 with three bidders vying for the buy in New York, the auction house said in a statement. The 2.43 m tall and 4-meter (over 8x13 feet) wide work, has two panels: to the left a series of 15 images of a car crash, and to the right, a large silvery rectangle. It is an imposing work experts describe as trailblazing and a cinematic allusion to death on a silver screen.
The previous top sale for the enigmatic pop artist and son of Polish immigrants, who was born Andrej Varhola in Pittsburgh, was $71.72 million, Sotheby's said.
The Sotheby's auction comes just a day after a triptych by British painter Francis Bacon -- "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" -- sold for $142.4 million, setting a new world record for the most expensive piece of art auctioned. That work by Bacon, the 20th century figurative artist, who lived from 1909 to 1992, had never before been put under the hammer until Christie's flagship evening sale. It was bought by a New York gallery. The most expensive artwork ever is a Cezanne that sold for $259 million in 2011 in a private sale.
Hammered to an outburst of applause, the Bacon surpassed the previous record of $119.9 million fetched by Edvard Munch's iconic "The Scream" by rival house Sotheby's in New York in May 2012.

3. NEW YORK Artnet: Top Ten Artists for 2013 (So Far)
 The top 10 artists in 2013, by value sold at auction Q1–Q3, include:
1. Pablo Picasso (Q1–Q3 2013 sales: US$233.7 million)
2. Zhang Daqian (US$206.6 million)
3. Jean-Michel Basquiat (US$169.4 million)
4. Qi Baishi (US$168.1 million)
5. Andy Warhol (US$143.1 million)

6. Gerhard Richter (US$124 million)
7. Claude Monet (US$112 million)
8. Roy Lichtenstein (US$102.3 million)
9. Amadeo Modigliani (US$91.3 million)
10. Jackson Pollock (US$79.6 million)
In Q3 (the weakest quarter for auctions) sales were up 20% in the US and 30% in Japan:
Elsewhere, the art market continued to track global financial trends with the United States exhibiting steady growth, while art markets in China and the United Kingdom slowed. Christie’s New
York was up 42% in Q3, followed by an 18% growth in value sold at Bonhams. Similar performance was seen across the board, with Heritage Auctions, Freeman’s, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers,
and Neal Auction Company showing considerable growth in both volume and value sold in other American cities.
Even with slow economic activity across Europe, successful auctions in Italy, Ireland, and Spain have contributed to Q3 growth, suggesting that the European art market as a whole may be
stabilizing.
Several London auction houses are still lagging behind 2012 performance, with the entire UK region down 7% in Q3 2013.
Artnet Q3 Trends Press Release

4. NEW YORK New York Impressionist-Modern  Round Up
The Impressionist and Modern sales in New York were a rollercoaster of emotions for collectors and market watchers as the week moved from seeming market weakness to something more resembling strength. Perhaps the best indicator of demand in the category was not the attention-grabbing collections that led the Evening sales but the performance of the Zieseniss collection and the Day sales. Those 8 works made $18m mostly beating their estimates; the next day, Sotheby's saw more strong sales for works by Chagall, Monet, Caillebotte, Renoir and others. Most of the top ten works in Sotheby's day sale easily exceeded their estimates. The same was true with Christie's day sale were the bulk of the top lots were at prices above the estimates. Even the Krugier sale was able to score top

positions for the works that held relatively low estimates.
Christie’s NY Imp-Mod & Jan Krugier = $293.6m
Sotheby’s NY Imp-Mod = $348m
 Does Sotheby’s Imp-Mod Success Satisfy Wall Street?
The Financial Times gathered a reaction to Sotheby’s resounding success in the Impressionist and Modern market this week. They asked analysts if the results would change their view of the company’s prospects:
“Its clear that bidders saved their bids for Sotheby’s this week, with most higher value lots going for well above their expected range,” noted Oliver Chen, luxury analyst at Citigroup. “However, questions still remain over what auction commission margins these items were sold at.”
Headlines sum it up...
Sotheby’s trumps Christie’s in New York autumn auction season (Financial Times)
Sotheby’s Restores Market Confidence with $290m Imp-Mod Sale (Financial Times)
 Giacometti, Picasso Help Sotheby’s Tally $290 Million (Bloomberg)
Strong Mix of Art Propels a Fine Night at Sotheby’s (NYTimes)
Sotheby’s Soaring Night (Artinfo)
Sotheby’s Nets Impressive $290.2 M. at Steadily Paced Imp-Mod Sale (GalleristNY)
Sotheby’s Strong Sale Anchored by $50 Million Giacometti Bronze (Wall Street Journal)
Asian Buyers Draw Attention While ‘Masterpieces’ Languish at Christie’s Imp-Mod Evening Sale
 Giacometti Fetches Record $33 Million in Listless Auction (Bloomberg)
Collectors Turn Picky at Christie’s Limp Sale (Wall Street Journal)
Lackluster Bidding Dampens Second Night at Christie’s (NYTimes)
Top Lots Fail at Christie’s Disappointing $144m Imp-Mod Sale (GalleristNY)
Christie’s Regains a Bit of Traction in Tuesday Sale (artinfo)
 Picasso’s Claude & Paloma Sells to China’s Top Billionaire (Bloomberg)
 Bloomberg is reporting identity of one of last night’s buyers at the Jan Krugier sale:
China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin, bought Picasso’s painting of his young children, Claude and Paloma, for $28.2 million at Christie’s in New York yesterday, the auction house said.

5. 1. NEW YORK, NY.- The week of Asian Art sales at Sotheby’s New York concluded today bringing a total of $74,077,814, more than doubling the combined low estimate (est. $30/43 million).* There were excellent results in all sales with strong prices for two thousand years of Asian Art spanning from Archaic Chinese Bronzes to Modern Indian Paintings. The highest price of the week’s sales in New York was realized when The Gong Fu Tie Calligraphy by Su Shi, one of the towering figures of early Chinese history, sold for $8,229,000.

6.  SHANGHAI (AFP).- Christie's held its first independent auction in mainland China Thursday with artworks including Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, marking its full-fledged entry into a market considered a key growth engine for global art sales. Hundreds of people attended the auction as more than 40 items -- from Western masterworks and Asian contemporary art to jewellery, watches and wine -- went under the hammer to fetch 153 million yuan ($25 million). Christie's, which has long operated in Hong Kong, had been organising sales in China since 2005 by authorising a Chinese auction firm to use its international trademark, due to strict regulations on setting up a solely-foreign invested auction house. But the firm said in April it had become the first international auction house authorised to operate in mainland China without a local partner. he house now expects "to connect Shanghai and therefore mainland China into Christie's network" which includes New York, London, Paris and Milan, Murphy said on Tuesday as it unveiled a three-day exhibition of the auction items ahead of the sale.
China emerged as the world's largest art and antiques market with a 30 percent share in 2011, narrowly overtaking the United States for the first time, according to the European Fine Art Foundation. It reverted to second place in 2012 with a 25 percent global share as the US regained the top spot with 33 percent, the art fair organiser said in a March report.
Christie's, one of numerous business interests of French billionaire Francois Pinault, was at the centre of controversy in 2009 when two bronze animal heads looted from Beijing's Old Summer Palace in 1860 were put up for auction in Paris. The animal heads were then owned by Pierre Berge, the partner of late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, until Pinault acquired the two bronzes and handed them back to China in June this year. © 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

7. HONG KONG.- Commenting on Sotheby’s Hong Kong 40th Anniversary Evening Sale, Sotheby’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Ruprecht said, “Sotheby’s was at the top of its game, performing impeccably and making the most of an incredibly robust Asian art market. We saw the excitement of 11 world records as multiple bidders from around the world competed for exquisite works.”

Kevin Ching, Chief Executive Officer of Sotheby’s Asia, said: “This evening’s sale was a fitting achievement to celebrate our company’s 40 years in Asia. Our extensive global network of specialists sourced and sold rare, remarkable and fresh-to-the-market works from important collections around the world. With nearly 700 people in a standing-room-only saleroom, and many competing by phone as well, both new and established collectors responded enthusiastically to the unique opportunity to acquire works of superb quality across the categories of 20th Century Chinese Art, Contemporary Asian Art and Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art. Bidding came from 25 countries in a sale which achieved the highest total for any comparable sale in Asia, more than doubling the previous record*. Five bidders competed for more than fifteen minutes for Zeng Fanzhi’s The Last Supper, a 2001 oil-on-canvas, and applause broke out several times before the work sold for HK$180,440,000 / US$23,273,151 and set a record for a work of Contemporary Asian Art and for the work of a living Chinese artist. The sale also set records for ten other artists including Zao Wou-ki, Liu Ye, Pan Yuliang, Walter Spies, Ay Tjoe Christine, Chen Wen Hsi, Juan Luna, Cesar Legaspi, Georgette Chen and Rudi Mantofani.”
**Previous record of any comparable sale in Asia: HK$492,660,000 / US$63,306,810.