Auctions Summer 2012

1. LOS ANGELES (AP).- July 31, 2012 A watch worn by Steve McQueen in "Le Mans" sold for nearly $800,000 at an auction of film memorabilia.

The auction house Profiles in History said Tuesday the Heuer wrist watch sported by the actor in the 1971 action movie sold for $799,500. A signed U.S. passport belonging to McQueen fetched $46,125.

Other items that were sold included a miniature drop-ship used in "Aliens" for $225,000; Groucho Marx's wire-rim glasses from "A Night at the Opera" for $86,100; and Vivien Leigh's hat from "Gone with the Wind" for $67,650.

One bidder coughed up $98,400 for Marlon Brando's assassination jacket from "The Godfather." A personal copy of the 1971 film's script signed by Brando went for $55,000.

The buyers were not identified.

2.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA.- The Gold Standard names of Entertainment & Music memorabilia shone brightly on July 24 at Heritage Auctions’ $878,000+ Signature® Beverly Hills event, as an Academy Special Award©®™ (realized: $98,500), the rarest Beatles promo record of them all (realized: $35,000) and a Marilyn Monroe-signed headshot (realized: $32,500) – inscribed to LAPD office Roy Garrett, who let the star off with a warning in exchange for the pic – topped the considerable offerings in Beverly Hills. All prices include Buyer’s Premium.

“The bidding was spirited and steady all day long,” said Margaret Barrett, Director of Entertainment & Music Auctions at Heritage, “with major names dominating collector attention and bids.”

The Academy Special Award©®™ was presented to Thomas Armat in 1947 for his pioneering work on inventing the first patented American film projector continued the string of impressive prices for pre-1950 Academy Awards©®™, while the rarest Beatles Promo 45 of them all, “Ask Me Why”/ “Anna” (Vee-Jay Special DJ No. 8, 1964), in realizing $35,000, demonstrated the continuing viability of The Beatles as the greatest – and most collectible – rock band of the all.

The true star of the show, however, was the greatest Hollywood starlet of all time, Marilyn Monroe, as a host of Monroe-related memorabilia was featured in the auction, garnering significant national and international press, and realizing impressive prices for the top pieces. No item got more attention or bids than a Marilyn Monroe signed black and white photograph, circa 1956, which realized an astounding $32,500 against a pre-auction estimate of $8,000+.

The headshot came to auction from The Roy Garrett Collection, A Beverly Hills police officer who joined the force in 1946. Garrett would frequently stop movie stars and would occasionally ask them to send him an autographed photo.

“Most of them did,” said Barrett. “He evidently let Marilyn go without a ticket as he received this from her in the mail a few days later. It’s the star in one of her legendary glamour poses and, written in blue fountain pen it reads: ‘To Roy,/Love & Kisses and/thanks for keeping me/out of the clink!/ Marilyn Monroe.’”

Two more Monroe-associated items figured prominently in the top portion of the auction, with her likely Final Signed Check, dated Aug. 4, 1962, attracting significant media attention and surpassing its’ pre-auction estimate to finish the day at $15,000 – the check was to Pilgrim’s Furniture and was for $228.80 – while Monroe’s hot pink Pucci Blouse, circa 1962, inspired many collectors to bid to the final tune of $12,500.

Further highlights include, but are not limited to:

Johnny Cash Personally-Owned and Stage-Played Guitar Made by Danny Ferrington: A majestic black acoustic guitar played and loved by the Man in Black himself. Realized: $30,000.

A Gloria Swanson Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 'Certificate of Nomination for Award' for “Sunset Boulevard,” Paramount, 1950: Presented to the star, text reads in part “Be it known that/Gloria Swanson/was nominated for an Academy Award of Merit/for Outstanding Achievement/Best Actress/Sunset Boulevard.” Realized: $18,750.

George Harrison original drawing (2000): George Harrison drew this for his friend Danny Ferrington, called the “Calvin Klein of guitars.” George created this drawing of Danny's workshop while the two were in Hawaii together, and signed it “Keoki,” Hawaiian for “George.” Realized: $15,000.

Carlos Santana Personally-Owned and Signed 1991 Tom Anderson Guitarworks Classic Model Guitar: A gorgeous black finish, double cutaway guitar, Serial Number 07-08-91P, signed in silver paint pen on the lower bass bout by Carlos Santana. Realized: $15,000.

Pearl Jam 1993 Favorite New Artist, Pop/ Rock American Music Award to Dave Abbruzzese: This band has always been a bit hard to categorize as illustrated by the American Music Awards in 1993. They won as Favorite New Artist in both Pop/ Rock AND Metal/ Hard Rock. Offered here is the actual pyramid-shaped crystal award statue, 4.5" x 14.25" x 4.5", given to drummer Dave Abbruzzese, from his personal collection. Realized: $11,875." artdaily.org

 

3. LONDON.- Sotheby's London presents its inaugural “Collections” auction on Thursday, 27th September 2012. Sourced from distinguished and aristocratic private collections, the sale will offer clients the opportunity to acquire a wealth of fine and decorative arts dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth Century. Assembled from a diverse array of locations ranging from the grand state rooms of a Roman Palazzo, to a Lutyens-designed manor house in England previously owned by the flamboyant American businessman Tom Perkins, the auction will offer an exciting combination of decorative and important objects, including English and Continental furniture, clocks, tapestries, rugs, silver, Chinese export porcelain, sculpture and Old Master Paintings. The sale has been carefully curated, focussing on exciting privately-owned items which are fresh to the market – and in the case of specially commissioned works – appearing for the very first time. The 306 lots which have a combined estimate in excess of £1.7 million, range in value from £500-100,000.

Mario Tavella, Deputy Chairman, Sotheby’s Europe and Henry House, Senior Director and Head of Department, English Furniture, commented: “We are delighted to present the first of our “Collections” auctions, which have been designed to offer our decorative arts and furniture clients a completely new perspective. Here, carefully curated in one auction, we have, in effect, discrete single owner sales, each offering historic, fresh to the market works, which should delight the decorator, connoisseur and collector alike.”

The auction provides a glimpse of collections within collections and also the collectors who built them – from Frederick McCarthy’s 14 exquisitely painted eighteenth century Chinese teapots (est. £4,000-6,000), offered as one lot – to the modern, with Tom Perkins’ model of a Bugatti (£4,000-6,000), a much-loved desk ornament and reminder of his legendary collection of super-charged vintage sports cars.

“COLLECTIONS” HIGHLIGHTS:
From the Collection of Mr and Mrs Frederick McCartney, the sale features a suite of exquisite and very rare Chinese export wallpaper panels dating from the 18th Century, estimated at £15,000-25,000. By the mid-18th century Chinese painted export wallpapers were a highly sought after commodity. Imported directly by the East India Company, similar sets to this appeared in great rooms throughout England.

An elegant pair of George III carved giltwood elbow chairs by England’s greatest cabinet maker, Thomas Chippendale, are estimated to realise £20,000-£30,000. The chairs, which relate closely to a large group in the Royal Collection, may have been part of an impressive commission by HRH Prince William Henry, 1st Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, King George III’s younger brother. On the prince’s death it was divided between his two children and at some point in the early 19th century entered the Royal Collection.

From an Aristocratic Italian Collection comes a wonderful group of early works of art, including a spectacular Renaissance allegorical tapestry, from the series depicting the planets after woodcuts by the German artist Georg Pencz. Flemish, dating from the mid-sixteenth century, the tapestry depicts the sun (Leo) ascending to the heavens in a chariot, and is estimated at £50,000-60,000.

Also featured is a nineteenth century oil on canvas by Rosa Bonheur, an artist renowned for her animal studies. The atmospheric Les Muletiers, depicts a pair of mule drivers urging on their small flock of sheep and cattle as dusk falls, and is estimated at £30,000-50,000. The painting was executed in 1854, a year before Bonheur’s most celebrated work, the monumental Horse Fair, which led to her international fame and recognition.

From Plumpton Place, the Lutyens manor house formerly owned by Tom Perkins, comes an eclectic offering reflecting the collecting passions of the legendary venture capitalist. “Neptun”, a solid silver, fully rigged model ship almost a metre high, dating from the early years of the twentieth century, is estimated to realise £15,000-20,000. Richly embossed and chased with mythological scenes and allegories of the Continents and Commerce, the ship was positioned before the leaded staircase window at Plumpton. The owner of many beautiful and historic yachts, Tom Perkins is most celebrated for his commission of his 289- foot super-yacht, The Maltese Falcon. This nef is a reflection of his continuing love of the sea.  artdaily.org

Art Donations - More Orphans Now and in the Future

This New York Times article points out a serious problem in the art world that has been created as a result of the new AAM (American Association of Museums) collecting guidelines. Collectors that started after 1970 that are now downsizing as they enter their 60s are finding that they have limited options for passing on their collections. The options are pretty clearly limited for most to giving them to the family or selling them. The wealthiest collectors are creating trusts or foundations to  circumvent issues where museums could be compelled to return objects that had been donated and had become part of the museum's collections. The UNESCO convention and UNIDROIT will in my opinion in the future exert increased pressures on governments to infringe on the property rights of private citizens. The new AAM guidelines are just one manifestation of this movement that creates some problematic precedents for the future. So far no one has given me an adequate answer to the rationale for creating one standard for objects being considered for acquisition and another standard for those objects aleady in the collection. Understandably no one wants to talk about this but it really is the 10,000 pound gorilla in the room. There is no intellectual honesty in maintaining two standards.

"In the three decades since David Dewey of Minneapolis began collecting Chinese antiquities he has donated dozens to favored museums, enriching the Institute of Arts in his hometown as well as Middlebury College in Vermont, where he studied Mandarin.

Allen Brisson-Smith for The New York Times

David Dewey bought these Yuan dynasty artifacts from a dealer 15 years ago, but many museums now seek a more extensive provenance for gifts. 

Stefano Buonamici for The New York Times

“Antiquities collecting destroys far more than it saves,” said Ricardo J. Elia, a Boston University archaeology professor on a field study in Spain.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

This Olmec-era statuette owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a provenance dating to 1972 — not early enough for current guidelines for donations.

Enlarge This Image

Ralph Toporoff, Courtesy of Jensen Fine Arts

Amid the artifacts with undisputed provenance in the home of Alan M. Dershowitz, there is a sarcophagus for which there is no proof of when and how it left Egypt.

But his giving days are largely over, he said, pre-empted by guidelines that most museums now follow on what objects they can accept.

“They just won’t take them — can’t take them,” Mr. Dewey said.

Alan M. Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor, is in a similar bind. An antiquities collector, he is eager to sell an Egyptian sarcophagus he bought from Sotheby’s in the early 1990s. But he is stymied, he said, because auction houses are applying tighter policies to the items they accept for consignment.

“I can’t get proof of when it came out of Egypt,” Mr. Dershowitz said.

Across the country measures taken to curb the trade in looted artifacts are making it more difficult for collectors of antiquities to donate, or sell, the cultural treasures that fill their homes, display cases and storage units.

Museums typically no longer want artifacts that do not have a documented history stretching back past 1970, a date set by the Association of Art Museum Directors, whose guidelines most institutions have adopted. Drawn up in 2008, the rules have been applauded by countries seeking to recover their artifacts and by archaeologists looking to study objects in their natural settings.

But the sweeping shift in attitudes has left collectors stuck with items they say they purchased in good faith many years ago from reputable dealers. One study found that as many as 100,000 privately owned ancient Greek, Roman and related Classical objects in the United States would be unable to pass muster with most museums.

“Objects are guilty until proven innocent,” said James J. Lally, a Manhattan dealer in Chinese art and antiquities.

Collectors and their advocates predict that museums, cultural scholarship and the items themselves will suffer as important gifts are disallowed. Kate Fitz Gibbon, a lawyer with the Cultural Policy Research Institute, warned at a March forum that museums, long reliant on the generosity of collectors, may come to regard the guidelines as a “self-administered slow poison.” “This may sound like an exaggeration,” she said. “But if we continue on this path, there may not be a next generation of collectors, donors and patrons of ancient art, not in the United States of America anyway.” There are many on the other side of the question who view Ms. Fitz Gibbon’s perspective as hyperbolic.

“Antiquities collecting destroys far more than it saves,” said Ricardo J. Elia, an archaeology professor at Boston University who specializes in the global art market. “Looting is driven by the art market, by supply and demand.”

For centuries collectors have helped define artistic taste, and their collections, whether assembled for vanity, beauty, profit or some combination thereof, have been the backbone of museums. But the antiquities trade begins, at its source, with an act of appropriation: the removal of artifacts from a native site to one where, in the case of museums, they can be more accessible to scholars and the public.

Whatever air of nobility once attached to that effort has dissipated recently as antiquities collectors are increasingly depicted as the beneficiaries of a villainous trade.

Collectors and their advocates insist the depiction is unfair, particularly when it recasts acquisitions made decades ago, when cultural sensibilities were different, as the illicit booty of indifferent rascals.

“Even objects that entirely lack history are also not necessarily smuggled or looted,” said William G. Pearlstein, a New York lawyer who advises collectors and dealers in the antiquities trade. “Many owners simply failed to keep records of their objects, which they treated like other household possessions.”

Archaeologists scoff at the suggestion of naïveté, since collectors are typically educated, wealthy people who understand the relationship between provenance and value and are not likely to let important documents fall behind the couch.

“Collectors know that without provenance it is impossible to know whether an object was first acquired by illegal or destructive means,” said Neil J. Brodie, an archaeologist and former director of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre at the University of Cambridge.

Momentum for stricter guidelines has been building since a United Nations convention on looted antiquities in 1970 led to international protocols. It accelerated several years ago in the aftermath of major acquisition scandals at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and other institutions that ultimately led to the new policies drawn up by the museum directors. They strongly discourage museums from buying or accepting objects that cannot pass the 1970 test or lack an export permit from the country of origin.

On the auction side collectors and their advocates say the nation’s two largest houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, have tightened their policies in recent years, though Sotheby’s is currently embroiled in a dispute with Cambodia over a 10th-century Khmer statue.

Antiquities dealers say their clients feel boxed in. Randall Hixenbaugh, a Manhattan gallery owner and appraiser, said he knew a donor with good paperwork who was turned away by a museum because his dossier lacked a pre-1970 photograph showing the item in the United States. “The intention is good,” he said. “Museums are not buying objects of dubious provenance. But there are unintended consequences for objects that were here for 150 years but not documented as such.”

Several years ago the Cultural Policy Research Institute, based in Santa Fe, N.M., surveyed American collectors and museums and estimated that as many as 111,900 ancient objects from Greek, Roman, Etruscan and related cultures are in private American hands and “unprovenanced.”

Arthur A. Houghton III, president of the institute, said that if rejected by museums, these “orphaned” items will likely end up in private hands outside the country.

Mr. Houghton is a former acting curator of the Getty who resigned his post there in 1986 after accusing the museum of willfully accepting illegally excavated antiquities. Now he says the pendulum has swung too far back in a way that places significant objects “at risk of damage or destruction.”

Professor Elia dismisses talk of “orphaning” as patronizing “mythology.”

“It ignores the fact that dealing and collecting are causing looting in the first place,” he said from Spain, where he is overseeing a field study. “For every object ‘rescued’ by looters, dealers and collectors, there is a trail of destroyed sites, lost knowledge, broken artifacts and broken laws.”

Lawrence Rothfield, founder of the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago and a member of Saving Antiquities for Everyone, said the study wrongly suggests the entire lot of privately owned, unprovenanced artifacts are museum worthy. “Even if the objects in question were not excluded from acquisition,” he said, “most of them would not be acquired anyway.”

What is clear is that collectors are uneasy. They worry that placing undocumented items for auction exposes them to litigation from foreign nations or perhaps a seizure effort from United States authorities acting as their agent. Many expressed their concerns at a forum in March, hosted by the Asia Society in New York and titled “The Future of the Past: Collecting Ancient Art in the 21st Century,” where collectors spoke of a “climate of fear.”

Mr. Dewey, the antiquities collector, said in an interview that he contemplated giving the Minneapolis museum an eighth-century ceramic horse from the Tang dynasty that he had bought from a Hong Kong dealer 20 years ago. But he decided not to do it because even with the paperwork from the sale, he said, he knew he would run up against the museum directors’ guidelines. “Everybody just got scared,” he said of the museum world.

One former museum director suggested that when a museum declines a gift, it can strain relations with a longstanding benefactor. Marc F. Wilson, who oversaw the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., from 1982 to 2010, said museums must be more careful but ought not leave benefactors feeling, in effect: “You can’t take my items? So you can’t take my $30 million either?”

Dougald O’Reilly, founder and director of Heritage Watch, a nonprofit that focuses on preserving Southeast Asian cultural heritage, sees it differently.

“In many cases collectors donate antiquities to museums for a tax break, hardly a completely altruistic act,” he said. “Why would it be objectionable to return the items to their country of origin? The oft-quoted reason is the ‘inability’ of developing countries to care for their antiquities. Surely it is time people stopped using this condescending argument.”

Despite the rhetoric, professionals on both sides are exploring ways to bridge the gulf. At the Asia Society forum Julian Raby, director of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, urged a system under which American museums might provide funds for archaeological excavations and benefit by sharing the discoveries with host nations.

Mr. Houghton suggests creating an amnesty of sorts for collectors who post facts and photos about potentially contested artifacts on a “credible and neutral” database. If the item is not claimed after some number of years, he said, its ownership could no longer be contested.

The museum directors’ association actually hosts such a Web site and asks that museums taking in an undocumented artifact post photos and other data that can be reviewed around the world.

Patty Gerstenblith, director of the Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul University in Chicago, said that four years after the Web site went up the number of items posted, more than 550 this week, seems small. (Two museums account for 418 of the items.) “This raises a serious question as to whether museums are failing to post their acquisitions on the registry,” she said.

Mr. O’Reilly said he did not believe that heightened scrutiny by museums or dealers threatens to orphan a large set of objects that were lovingly collected by people with a passion for antiquity. “That implies the collectors no longer want them if they can’t give them away, which surely is not the case,” he said.

Mr. Dershowitz said that while he is disappointed, he is not distraught about his inability to sell the wooden Egyptian sarcophagus he purchased from Sotheby’s. He had sent it to Christie’s several months ago for auction, but Christie’s demurred.

“They told me it was perfectly legal to keep or sell it,” he said, “but it was not their policy to sell it unless it was absolutely documented that it left Egypt before 1970,” something he and both auction houses are unable to establish. So for now it’s in limbo.

Meanwhile, he said, he had another Egyptian sarcophagus at home in Cambridge, this one of granite, that he bought for about $35,000 from Christie’s about the same time. He isn’t even trying to sell that one. “I’m keeping that in the house,” he said, “in the hall.”

The Art Market July 2012

1. "The top end of the art market appears to keep climbing, despite fresh crises in the currency and banking markets and ongoing turmoil in the Eurozone. The reportedly strong sales at Art Basel (13-17 June) indicate a buoyancy bearing little relationship to the problems in the global economy and the fact that major financial institutions are still struggling with risk management—J.P. Morgan was one of several banks to be downgraded by the credit agencies in June after losing $2bn in trades of illiquid credit derivatives. Meanwhile, according to a report in the New York Times, the growth of the art market is outstripping GDP (gross domestic product).

The $78m price tag for Untitled, 1954, a large orange canvas by the late Mark Rothko offered by Marlborough Gallery at Art Basel, was both a statement of intent and an indicator of confidence, at least at the very top level of the market. Works of this quality are rarely offered so openly by dealers, but the piece had been coaxed out of a private Swiss collection after the record-breaking $86.9m sale of another work by Rothko, Orange, Red, Yellow, 1961, at Christie’s a month earlier. “The best art has proved resilient.

Art Basel, and the quality it purveys, proves rather reassuring in such turbulent times,” says Andrew Renton, the director of Marlborough Contemporary. The 1954 Rothko was yet to find a buyer as we went to press, though Renton says that there are “very serious offers under discussion”.

Remarkably, 11 of the top 20 works ever sold at auction have hammered down since 2008, including the top three lots, which have all sold for more than $100m since 2010. New records have also been consistently set for individual artists. There was excitement at Christie’s sale of contemporary art in London on 27 June when a record £12.9m ($20.2m) was paid for Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled, 1981, breaking the previous record of $16.3m, set in May at Phillips de Pury in New York. This came 22 lots after a new record was set for a work by Yves Klein, when Le Rose du bleu (RE 22), 1960, sold for £23.6m ($36.8m), edging past the $36.5m record paid at Christie’s New York—again, just a month before.

According to Benjamin Mandel, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York who has been studying the art trade, comparing the overall economy and the art market is misguided: it is the fortunes of the super-rich that should be used as the measure at the highest end. “The historical relationship between the global economy and art purchases is pretty normal at present,” he says. “The fraction of income that the super-rich are spending [on art] remains consistent—they just happen to have more money.”

Changes in wealth distribution since 2008 mean that the number of high-net-worth individuals (commonly defined as having at least $1m in divestible assets) reached its highest ever level of 11 million last year, holding an estimated $42 trillion in net wealth, according to a report by Capgemini/RBC Wealth Management. Following in the footsteps of wider economic changes, the very top of the art market is enjoying rude health while the middle is struggling. At the recent London sales of impressionist and modern art, Joan Miró’s Peinture (Etoile Bleue), 1927, made a record £23.6m, but works of lesser quality were shunned.

The geographic concentration of wealth has expanded, too, and this is having an impact on traditional investments. In newer econ­omies with more volatile, or less mature, financial markets, the rich spend more on luxury assets, including art, jewellery, wine and cars. According to a recent survey of 2,000 of the world’s super-rich individuals by Barclays Wealth, respondents in the United Arab Emirates hold 18% of their wealth in such assets, closely followed by the Chinese and Saudi Arabians (both 17%) and the Brazilians (15%)—compared with 9% of Americans, who tend to focus on more traditional investments.

Buyers from China and Qatar are entering the trade at this luxury level: they account for at least a quarter of the top 20 works sold at auction. There has been a parallel boom in private sales, including the reported $250m acquisition of Cézanne’s The Card Players, around 1893, by Qatar last year. The expansion is not without problems, however. One of the most expensive works to sell at auction, an 18th-century Qianlong-dynasty porcelain vase that went for £51.6m ($83m) in 2010 at Bainbridges Auctions in England, is a record only on paper—the buyers have yet to pay for it.

Although many of the buyers might be new, they are largely ­adhering to the traditional tenets of the trade: provenance, rarity, condition, supply and demand. Ten of the 11 record works sold since 2008 came from a named, established seller. “In the previous boom, between 2006 and 2008, people were more risky about what they were buying, but now they are looking for things with a historical footprint,” says the art economist Clare McAndrew. “Art at that level is an infrequent purchase, and an easy way to reduce your risk is to rely on established patterns set by other people. This is why people tend to be influenced by what others are buying, which reinforces the idea that some artists are the best.”

Sotheby’s 2007 auction of Rothko’s White Centre (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose), 1950, is a testament to the power of provenance. The work belonged to David and the late Peggy Rockefeller. Because the proceeds were going to charity, David Rockefeller agreed to be photographed on the cover of Art + Auction magazine: the work sold for a then-record $72.8m. The next evening, Christie’s sold a Rothko comparable in size and date, albeit with less dramatic colouring and a less impressive provenance, which went for $29.9m. This is noted in the recent book The Value of Art by Michael Findlay, a director of Acquavella Galleries and former head of Christie’s impressionist and modern department. Pointing out that such prestigious pedigree is unusual, he argues that “if something is great, provenance isn’t actually necessary—it lends more value to works of secondary quality, because the buyer will boast about the name if it is of note.”

Unique works are not always the record-breakers; the top three works sold at auction so far are serial pieces. Giacometti’s Walking Man I, 1960, which was briefly the world’s most expensive work at auction when it sold for £65m ($104.3m) in February 2010, was cast in an edition of eight. It was overtaken three months later by the $106.5m paid for Picasso’s 1932 Nude, Green Leaves and Bust. The painting is part of a celebrated series that includes Le Rêve, 1932, which sold to the hedge-fund manager Steve Cohen in 2006 for $139m (before its owner, Steve Wynn, called off the deal after accidentally sticking his elbow through the canvas). Edvard Munch’s The Scream, 1895, took the top slot in May when it sold for $120m—the work is one of four versions.

The serial context provides reassurance for buyers and an associated value. It also indicates a conflation of rarity with supply: although there are four versions of The Scream, the others are in public museums and unlikely to come to the market. “Supply is what drives buyers to go higher,” Findlay says. “There are lots of Monet Haystacks, but the opportunity to buy one would be unique because they are all in institutions.” Such limited supply fuels demand. “It takes at least 30 years, on average, for a work to come onto the market if it is in private hands, and these supply dynamics have worked in the market’s favour,” McAndrew says. “Art is a level above luxury goods: prices can catapult with the knowledge of a work’s scarcity because the super-rich compete to buy one piece.”

While condition is key, the definition of “good” varies according to the work. A Donald Judd in great condition means something quite different to a top-notch work by Rembrandt. “It’s all relative. An impressionist painting from 1880 in great condition may be relined, it may have frame abrasion on the edges—but those things are normal,” Findlay says.

The pursuit of blue-chip works has gained momentum because of the turmoil in other markets. “Art is portable and liquid, and can be traded in different currencies,” said Andrew Fabricant, a director at the Richard Gray Gallery, speaking during Art Basel. However, although blue-chip works are seen as safe havens, “the longer-term trend is that they tend to underperform compared with the rest of the market,” Benjamin Mandel warns.

The investment value of art is difficult to track: the art market comprises a series of mini-markets, each performing differently. The trade is lightly legislated, largely private and lacks the underpinning structure of, for example, a stock exchange. Nonetheless, using publicly available auction data, Mandel found that “the patterns of long-run returns for works of art don’t really conform to the definition of a good investment—the average return is very low, around 2% to 3%, and the volatility of those returns is very high.” He believes that the market can be better understood with the introduction of a “conspicuous consumption” model. “Art acquisitions are not only about the quality of a work and the price,” he says. “If a work hangs on a wall, then the buyer gets a ‘consumption flow’. They also get some benefits as a signal of the price they paid, so if you formalise that in a quantitative sense, it helps explain the financial sums.”

Mandel is reluctant to make predictions, but says that “if income inequality continues to increase, then you might expect to turn a profit at the top end of the market. But, on the other hand, if you’re buying a work as an insurance against losing money in other assets, it’s not clear whether the trend might reverse itself once the global economy looks more normal.”

It is worth bearing in mind that the close correlation between regional prosperity and growth in the art market is not a new phenomenon. The $82.5m that the Japanese paper magnate Ryoei Saito spent at Christie’s in 1990 on Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr Gachet, 1890, equates to $145m in today’s terms, which means it theoretically reigns as the most expensive work at auction. The art-market boom in the late 1980s was fuelled by newly rich Japanese on an art-buying spree. This stopped abruptly in 1991 with the collapse of Japanese property prices and sparked an entrenched art-market recession. If the current slowdown in China accelerates, for example, this could have a major impact on the trade." The Art Newspaper http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/How-long-can-the-art-market-walk-on-water?/26752

2. LONDON.- Tonight in a dramatic bidding battle at Sotheby’s London saleroom, a new benchmark was set when Joan Miró’s 1927 modern masterpiece Peinture (Étoile Bleue) sold for £23,561,250 / $36,946,396 / €29,260,764, exceeding the pre-sale estimate of £15-20 m / US$ 23.7 - 31.6 m / € 18.4 -24.5 m and shattering the previous record for the artist at auction. The hammer fell after a tense stand-off among four bidders, with offers jumping in large increments before the work was finally won by a telephone buyer. The sum paid was the highest price for a work of art sold in London thus far this year. Miró’s painting was the top lot in a sale which realised £75,046,850 / $117,680,965 / € 93,200,835 (est. £73- £102.6m / $114.4 -160.9m / € 90.5-127.3m). This brings the combined total for Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art sales worldwide this year to £435m / $692.6 m / €504.2, an increase of 12.4 % on the same period last year.

Helena Newman, Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department, Europe, said: “We are thrilled to have been able to offer Miró’s Peinture (Étoile Bleue) in tonight’s auction. At a time of unprecedented demand for the best examples of 20th-Century art, this masterpiece by Miró not only shattered the previous record for the artist (set only four months ago at £16.8 million), but also made more than three times the price it achieved five years ago.”

Further Statistics:
• The average lot value of the works sold this evening was £2,275,843.
• 33% of the works sold realised prices above high estimate.
• 23 works sold for over $1 million
• 15 works sold for over £1 million.

Joan Miró’s Peinture (Étoile Bleue)
Identified by the artist as a work that was key to his oeuvre, Peinture (Étoile Bleue), executed in 1927, belongs to the seminal ‘dream paintings’ cycle - in which Miró pioneered a uniquely poetic form of abstraction - examples of which can be found in major international museums such as the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Tate Gallery, London and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This landmark work was formerly in the collection of André Lefevre, a leading collector and connoisseur of early 20th century art. The price achieved at Sotheby’s this evening is three times the sum (£ 8.35 m / €11,586,520 / $16,673,650) achieved when the painting sold at auction in 2007. Demand for works by Miro is at an all-time high following a major international retrospective of the artist’s work in London, Washington and Barcelona.

Further highlights from this Evening's Sale
• Five bidders competed for Mother and Child with Apple, one of the most elegant and compelling of Henry Moore's interpretations of the theme, sold for ¢3,737,250 / $5,860,382 / £4,641,298 (est: ¢ 1.8 ¡V 2.8 million / US$ 2.9-4.4 million / £ 2.2-3.4 million), a record for an indoor sculpture by Moore, to bidder on the telephone. The work was owned by the same family since 1957, who bought it for ¢G650.

• Pablo Picasso's monumental late portrait Homme assis, executed in 1972, a year before his death, realised ¢6,201,250/ $9,724,180/ £7,701,345 (est: ¢ 6-9 million / US$ 9.50-14.2 million / £ 7.4-11 million).

• A remarkable and rare group of watercolours by Wassily Kandinsky from a Distinguished Private Collection made a combined total of ¢4,832,750 / $7,578,235 / £6,001,802 against a combined pre-sale estimate of ¢3.85 - 4.95 million. Perfectly exemplifying their respective periods, the works act as a survey of the artist's entire career.

• Pierre Bonnard's Nu Debout, a 1930 masterpiece from the collection of Mr and Mrs John D. Rockefeller 3rd sold for ¢4,521,250 /$7,089,772 /£5,614,950, a record for a nude by the artist ( est. ¢ 4.5-5.5 million / US$ 7.1-8.7 million / £ 5.5-6.8 million). Interest in Bonnard's nudes has been particularly strong in recent months following the landmark exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler. artdaily.com http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=56035

3. ABU DHABI.- " Abu Dhabi Art has announced its galleries for 2012; including new highlight exhibitors and an 80% return rate from last year. Again held in the Saadiyat Cultural District, future home of Louvre Abu Dhabi, Zayed National Museum, and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, it takes place from 7–10 November. Now in its fourth edition, it is organised by the new Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority* and sponsored by BVLGARI. "You can see from the calibre of galleries we have again this year, that it was a difficult decision to select a small number from the exceptional submissions, to fit with our boutique platform. We think the line-up reflects our goal—to show museum-quality work in an iconic setting," says Rita Aoun-Abdo, Executive Director. The 2012 edition includes 50 galleries, representing approximately 400 artists from 20 countries including 10 new galleries. Signature, the section presenting emerging artists" artdaily.org

4. DALLAS artdaily.org DALLAS (AP).- Hotel rooms are no longer just a place to shower, sleep or maybe indulge in a breakfast in bed. They're now also spots to pick up a souvenir — and no, we aren't talking about stealing the towels.

Like that painting over the bed? How about that drawing next to the TV? At hotels around the globe, guests now have the option to purchase the art work in their rooms.

For several years, hotels have invited local artists in to decorate hallways, lobbies and other public spaces. It's a way they can distinguish themselves from the cookie-cutter chains and offer guests a sense of their unique city or town. Now, they are taking that partnership one step further and turning bedrooms into mini-salesrooms.

The recently-opened Omni Dallas hotel features more than 6,500 original pieces of art from 150 local artists in guest rooms and public spaces. The art is one of the reasons the property doesn't feel like every other hotel stayed in on past vacations. It also gives guests the option of taking a bit of Texas culture home with them.

And the Omni Dallas is not the only one.

The Lancaster Arts Hotel, in Pennsylvania, sells art — and even some furniture — found in guest rooms, its own gallery and common spaces, all from local artists and craftsmen.

The Principe Forte Dei Marmi in Tuscany, Italy, actually hosts an artist in residence for several months. Guests meet and interact with the artist and then can custom order a piece of art. The guests can even handpick the materials to be used in sculptures.

Some chain hotels trying to distinguish themselves are getting into the art business.

At the Renaissance Arts Hotel in New Orleans, a Marriott property, don't expect to see price lists in the rooms. But guests who ask the staff can learn how to buy the various pieces of artwork, such as the glass sculptures in the bathroom that go for about $300. Each room features an original picture and the hotel is also able to refer guests to the artist or gallery if they are interested in other works.

Guests at the new Conrad New York can't take home the hotel's signature piece of art, Sol Lewitt's "Loopy Doopy (Blue and Purple)" which fills 13 stories of the lobby. However, each room has a tile representing part of the work. The gift shop sells the same tiles for $95.

Sherry Quinn, of Lisbon, Md., near Baltimore, recently purchased a painting, "Orange Moon over Lemmon Avenue," while attending a security-related convention at the Dallas Omni.

"It was the most unlikely place I would think I would purchase art," Quinn said. But the nighttime scene of the city just called to her. "I just felt like there was something magical about the painting."

Quinn had three days to debate buying the 32-inch by 32-inch painting. When she spoke to the gift shop staff — the hotel has a digital catalog of all its artwork there — she learned that the artist, Kelly Megert, actually worked there part-time. The next morning, she met Megert and spent $350 on the painting.

"I got to talk to her about she came about painting it," Quinn said. "I did love the painting itself, but the fact that it was a local artist kind of clinched the deal for me. It means something to me that an artist is painting about their city."

Ed Netzhammer, managing director of the Dallas Omni, notes that his hotel has "more art than a lot of the galleries and museums around the country."

"It makes it fun and interesting and adds a whole different level of energy to the hotel," Netzhammer said.

Bjorn Hanson, dean of New York University's hospitality school, said any savings hotels see from not having to furnish rooms is lost by the adding liability and staff needed to rotate the art.

The push for local art, he said, is coming from younger guests who don't want to see the same thing in a hotel in New York and San Francisco.

"This age group has a special appreciation for local sensitivity," Hanson said. "That would be things like helping local artists, helping local growers whether that's produce or bakeries or wine producers."

So leave a little extra room in that suitcase this summer — you never know what will be coming home with you from vacation.

Chicago Art Institute Raises the Standard for Everyone

Unfortunately, on this last trip around the country I visited The Art Institute before I made the trip to Bloomington and the Indiana University Art Museum. It is definitely preferable to restore your faith in mankind by saving the best for last. And the Art Institute is, indeed, the best. This installation is in every way elegant, informative, and accessible regardless of whether you are an experienced collector or casual museum visitor. The installation was the product of the collaborative vision of Dick Townsend, Kathleen Bickford Berzog, and the installation genius whose name I can't recall.

All areas reflect the great taste of both Townsend and Bickford Berzog who have had a major impact over the years in upgrading the Art Institute's holdings.  And remember this museum had some pretty great curators in the past with Evan Maurer, Alan Wardwell, and Alan Sawyer. Some powerful African objects seem to float mesmerizing the viewer. The extensive high quality Andean ceramic collection which undoubtedly was acquired during Sawyer's tenure offers the opportunity to compare different forms and icnography from the Paracas, Moche and Nazca cultures. A newly acquired Teotihuacan mask covered with spondylus shell dazzles. The iconic pair of chiwara headdresses, the massive polychrome Acoma jar, the Ameca valley Jalisco figure and the Mogollon ritual bache from Arizona are all there to see among other masterpieces we have come to  love from this collection.

I don't care where you are going or where you live, make a trip or a detour to see this. All will agree that this is a long way from the shotgun African gallery and the cramped quarters of the past for Pre-Columbian and Native American.


"African and Native American art at the Art Institute of Chicago gets a new home, starting Friday 3. Moved to the museum’s Morton Wing (formerly the contemporary art wing), the African Art and Indian Art of the Americas galleries have more than triple the space of their previous gallery. This allowed curators Kathleen Bickford Berzock and Richard Townsend to display dozens of never-before-exhibited works and make a few unusual curatorial choices. The curators worked closely with architect Kulapat Yantrasast, from Los Angeles–based firm wHY, who imbued the space with a clean, light and warm aesthetic that shows off dark-toned art objects, including masks, pottery, textiles and beadwork. Here’s what not to miss.

• Because of the larger space, Bickford Berzock, the African collection curator, took the opportunity to include work from all geographic regions of Africa, and, in some instances, the display shows how these different regions aesthetically influenced one another through trade. Bucking convention, Bickford Berzock mixed pottery, textiles and beadwork together with more familiar African staples like wood masks and ritual figures within the same display cases.
• A series of architectural elements, nicknamed gates, separates the larger galleries into smaller, more intimate areas—allowing a fluid movement of visitors. Each gate is composed of a simple wood archway and flanked by transparent display cases.
• Ci wara means farming animal in the language of Mali’s Bamana people. These headdresses—icons of the Art Institute—depict a pair of mythical ci wara: half antelope and half anteater.
• Curators chose to display these large mid-19th- to early-20th-century Baga headdresses from Guinea on a low-lying platform, bringing them closer to visitors. Matching costumes were reconstructed for the exhibition, a novel approach for the museum, which normally stresses authenticity over replication.
• Zulu artist Ntzinyanga Qwabe, born in South Africa in 1900, created wood relief carvings of people and animals. They reflect a transition between traditional and modern African art in the mid-20th century.
• In Indian Art of the Americas, Townsend strived to present a broad range of material from the entire Western Hemisphere, including works from native North America, Mesoamerica (think Maya and Aztec) and ancient Peru.
• Departing from traditional art exhibitions devoted to native cultures, the curators installed videos that place the objects in their cultural context. Ceremonial masks, after all, weren’t intended to be displayed inside glass cases. The videos present art objects and traditional ceremonial dances.
• The American Southwest section of the exhibition features dozens of pots, including this 1,000-year-old ancestral puebloan storage jar. In a bold move, curators displayed ancient finds next to more contemporary works, representing an unbroken tradition spanning centuries.
• The North American section features an extensive collection of native baskets, like this 1910 Maidu storage basket. Amazingly, many of these baskets held water, reflecting the basket makers’ mastery of this art form.
• Ah Maxam, this Mayan vase’s creator, lived around A.D. 750 in the Maya city of Naranjo. He signed the vase, which features glyphic writing and a water-lily motif symbolizing the cycle of birth, death and renewal.
• During the construction of Mexico City’s subway, workers stumbled upon this stone monument. It commemorates the coronation of the ill-fated Aztec emperor Moctezuma II in the year 1503." http://timeoutchicago.com/things-to-do/this-week-in-chicago/14780683/african-art-and-indian-art-of-the-americas

I initially saw this exhibition in Los Angeles at the Fowler Museum. It is a superb and important show. If you are in the San Francisco area, you need to see this. JB
 
 Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley
 Art from Little-Known Region of Africa on View at Stanford
May 16–October 14, 2012

Stanford, Calif. — “Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley” opens May 16 at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. Presenting more than 150 objects drawn from international collections, the exhibition gives a comprehensive view of the arts from along the river that flows across the center of Nigeria, joining the great Niger River on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. “Central Nigeria Unmasked,” on view through October 14, 2012, reveals arts and cultures of diverse peoples who are far less known and studied than those of the majority populations in the country’s northern and southern regions.


Organized in sections that unfold as a journey up the 650-mile-long Benue River, the exhibition presents artistic forms and styles associated with more than 25 ethnic groups. The objects on view embody meanings and purposes crucial to Benue Valley peoples as they confront and resolve life challenges and rites of passage such as birth, initiation, marriage, illness and death. Works include maternal figures, sleek statues, anthropomorphized vessels, elaborate regalia, masks with naturalistic human faces, and masks that appear as stylized animal-human fusions. Film footage of dynamic, complex masquerades; maps; photomurals; and written material provide further context for understanding the artworks.


“Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley” is organized by the Fowler Museum at UCLA in association with the Musée du quai Branly, Paris. The exhibition is co-curated by Marla C. Berns (Shirley and Ralph Shapiro Director, Fowler Museum), Richard Fardon (Professor of West African Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), Sidney Kasfir (Professor of Art History, Emory University, Atlanta) and Hélène Joubert (Curator of African Collections, Musée du quai Branly) with Gassia Armenian (Curatorial and Research Associate, Fowler Museum). Major support for the exhibition is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Shirley and Ralph Shapiro Director’s Discretionary Fund, Jay and Deborah Last, Ceil and Michael Pulitzer, Joseph and Barbara Goldenberg, Robert T. Wall Family and Jill and Barry Kitnick. Major funding for the publication is provided by the Ahmanson Foundation with additional support from the Ethnic Arts Council of Los Angeles. The planning phase of the project was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley is organized by the Fowler Museum at UCLA in association with the Musée du quai Branly, Paris.The exhibition's presentation is made possible at Stanford by the Center's Clumeck Fund and Cantor Arts Center Members.


Berns speaks about the exhibition on Wednesday, May 16 at 6 pm. On Thursday, May 17, New York Times art critic Holland Cotter presents the Wilsey Distinguished Lecture, entitled “Critical Consciousness: Art and the World,” at 6 pm in Annenberg Auditorium, Cummings Art Building. A Nollywood Film Festival is being presented Saturday, June 9, from 11 am to mid-afternoon. Docents offer tours of the exhibition on Thursdays at 12:15 pm and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 pm. The programs are free, and all except the May 17 lecture are at the Cantor Arts Center.

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VISITOR INFORMATION: Cantor Arts Center is open Wednesday – Sunday, 11 am - 5 pm, Thursday until 8 pm. Admission is free. The Center is located on the Stanford campus, off Palm Drive at Museum Way. Parking is free after 4 pm weekdays and all day on weekends. Information: 650-723-4177, museum.stanford.edu.