Art Market

One more post on Maastricht: there were so many wonderful things there that I don’t want to try to single out “the best.” But I do have a favorite booth, that of the Weiss Gallery of London. It didn’t have “the best” art, but it did make a lasting impression. Here’s a picture of what you saw as you approached, dead on.

Across the top, Weiss inscribed “Tudor and Stuart Portraits from the Collections of the English Nobility and Their Great Country Houses.”  Those red walls were sumptuous, and the paintings seductive (partly because of their costumes). I smiled when I saw the booth.

I realize that this art isn’t for everyone (what art is?), but … all together, these portraits are simply wonderful to see. Many are unattributed; others are by minor artists, but that’s not the point. “Never before has a commercial gallery offered for sale so many early Tudor and Stuart portraits of such distinction and importance, all of which are notable for their distinguished aristocratic provenances,” Mark Weiss says on the gallery’s website.

Weiss acquired many of the works at last year’s house sale at Cowdray Park in West Sussex, whose contents, auctioned by Christie’s, fetched £7.9 million over three days.  Those works were supplemented by portraits, sold by Sotheby’s, that were once owned by the Earls of Elgin and the Marquesses of Ailesbury, plus a few others. One, “The Family of Adrien de Witte, Lord of Buerstede and Welken” by Hieronymous Francken the Elder, came from an American collection.  An adorable “Young Boy, Aged 3, with Kolf Club and Ball,” dated 1603, came in from a British private collection just a short time before TEFAF-Maastricht opened, no doubt put on offer by someone who could see the impact of being in this group.  

The centerpiece in the picture above, the Ditchley Henry VIII (English school, circa 1600-1610), sold within the first hour of the fair. It had an asking price of £2.5 million. This morning, Mark Weiss answered my email request for these photos and his results with the news that he had sold “a large Flemish family group” to a Turkish client — that must be the Francken mentioned above, which is seen, in part, on the left in the picture below — “and a major Dutch museum has reserved the magnificent pair of Cornelius Johnsons.” He added that “yesterday we sold all three Howard ladies (Catherine Carey Countess of Nottingham and her two daughters Elizabeth and Frances Howard) to just one Russian client!”

Readers may see that Catherine Carey on the Weiss website — where you can also find an e-catalogue with photos and information about most of these works.

The TEFAF art fair in Maastricht turns 25 years old tomorrow, and in its lifetime, it has become the world’s best art fair. It’s known, of course, for showing Old Masters (experts estimate that some 70% of Old Masters on the market are shown first at Maastricht), but it has grown to include modern works. Now, 46 of the 260 dealers at the fair show 20^th and 21^st century works. Plus, there’s jewelry; in 2009, a design section was added. And it now admits six young galleries for a one-time presence.

Last March, nearly 74,000 people, including representatives from 225 museums, made the trek to Maastricht – vs. about 65,000 for Art Basel and about 50,000 for Art Basel Miami Beach.

This year, I decided to join the crowd. I haven’t been in ages, though in 1998, I wrote an article for The New York Times about the strict vetting of offerings in Maastricht headlined “The Old Masters? They’re the Ones Inspecting the Art; At the Maastricht Fair, Security Teams Come With Magnifying Glasses.” This seemed to be the year to return.

To celebrate this year’s jubilee, TEFAF is publishing a book illuminating some of the best items sold there, for example:

• In 2008, a private collector bought van Gogh’s portrait, “The Child with an Orange,” at right, which he painted during the last weeks of his life, from Dickinson of London and New York. It had not been on the market for more than 90 years, and had an asking price of more than $30 million.
• In 2002, an American collector purchase a recently rediscovered drawing by Michelangelo from by Jean-Luc Baroni of London, “Mourning Woman,” which was priced at €13 million. It had been found pasted into an album of otherwise undistinguished drawings in the library at Castle Howard in Yorkshire, England, and is one of the earliest works on paper by Michelangelo to have survived.
• In 2003, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston purchased a previously unrecorded Regency Bed attributed to Thomas Hope and dating from c1805 – one of the most original pieces in English furniture.

I’m expecting even better this year (it runs through Mar. 25).

This all means that I may not post daily during the next few days, though I will if I have time.

I spent last night at the opening of the ADAA Art Show, and all I can say is that this show is back. It’s not — I suspect, and soon will see — the Armory Show, where the art is much edgier and which is opening in preview as I write (I’ll be going shortly). But this year’s ADAA show is full of fresh art, often made recently. Not everything is expensive. Yet virtually everyone I spoke with last night was complimentary about the offerings.

What will you see? The booths that leave the biggest impressions tend to be the ones with solo shows, naturally. So Metro Pictures is out front, one of the first booths you see, with Cindy Sherman’s “Murder Mystery,” while nearby Marian Goodman has a beautiful show of works by Francesca Woodman. DC Moore is offering Romare Bearden, L&M Arts has John Baldessari, and David Zwirner has a booth full of Suzan Frecon (left), which the gallery says completely sold out last night. Frankly, there are too many good booths to mention…

Several dealers reported sales — and I saw a number of red dots, plus several works on reserve. There’s  no way to gauge the commerce, really, however.  

 So far, I’ve seen just two other reports — from Gallerist NY and Art Info, which agree on the quality.  This may be a sign of a better mood in the market or renewed competion with The Armory Show, who knows? Whatever, this year it’s worth seeing. In fact, I’ll be going back.

UPDATED: OK, now I’ve listened to a few more people for their view of the ADAA Art Show, and some were lukewarm. In his BaerFaxt, Josh Baer pointed out, rightly, that “The ADAA seemed grown up with “real art,” somewhat of an antidote to shows like the Whitney Biennial but relatively devoid of masterpieces (or supposed masterpieces).” I agree – I saw no masterpieces last night.

As for The Armory Show, Baer writes: “The Armory has better logistics, is easy to navigate and a chance to see a lot of new art, if not great art.” We will have to disagree about the first two, but I agree the art there is “not great.”

I walked almost through most booths on both piers, and found almost nothing that I hadn’t seen before. One booth had a copycat Wayne Thiebaud (his pies!), a copycat Andreas Gursky and a copycat Robert Polidori. A Chelsea gallery with a diversified roster brought virtually all photography that was similarly derivative of Gursky, Candida Hofer, et. al. Likewise with most of the paintings on view. What wasn’t stale seemed gimmicky to me. In the modern section, some pieces were lovely, but not out of the ordinary — just very typical works.

Gallerist NY is again far more enthusiastic.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of David Zwirner Gallery (top), a sculpture by Ai Weiwei (bottom), courtesy of  Business Insider

On the eve of a big week for the art market in New York — the ADAA Art Show opens Wednesday at the Park Avenue Armory, The Armory Show opens on Thursday on Piers 92 and 94, and there are several smaller fairs, too — I thought it was time for a review of the market.

Conveniently, ArtPrice recently released its 2011 annual report. It contains some very revealing statistics, showing what’s been in the air for some time now — namely, that the art market at the top is strong, despite continuing worldwide economic troubles, and that it’s stronger in China, which has fewer of those woes, than anywhere else. But the interest is in the details, and below, I have excerpted several points the report made. They are verbatim except for the words in brackets, which I have added for clarity:

• Art in fact sold better in 2011 than at any other time in history with $11.57 billion in total global annual revenue [based on 6.3 million auction results from 4,500 auction houses around the world], up $2 billion versus 2010, which already produced the best performance of the decade.
• The Asian art market has become the most high-end area of the entire globe. For example, 12.1% of works sold in Asia sell for between $100,000 and $1m, versus 2.2% for the rest of the world.
• 1,675 artworks sold above the $1 million threshold (including 59 above the $10 million threshold) representing a 32% increase of 7-figure (or more) auction sales versus 2010 and an increase of 493% versus the start of the decade! China accounts for the highest auction results (with 774 auction results above $1 million recorded in 2011 compared with 426 in the USA and 377 in the UK), mostly generated at auctions in Beijing and Hong Kong.
• In 2011, the global art auction market generated 21% more than in 2010 and there is not a single segment of the art market that did not progress in terms of turnover. Compared with 2010, Modern art added $1.2B, Post-war art added $372m, Contemporary art added $291m, Old Masters added $124 million and 19th century art posted an increase of $43 million.
• The Beijing based China Guardian can boast the highest bid of 2011 after selling Qi Baishi’s Eagle Standing on Pine Tree, Four-Character Couplet in Seal Script for Â¥370 million ($57.2 million) against an initial estimate of Â¥88 million on 22 May 2011. This is the world record for a work of Modern Chinese art. 
• Beijing is where the market’s pulse beats strongest now, generating over $3.17 billion in annual revenue, representing more than 27% of global art auction revenue. Behind Beijing there is New York ($2.593 billion), $380 million ahead of London with $2.214 billion and then Hong Kong, which has climbed to fourth place with $796m, representing nearly 7% of global art auction revenue.
• [While Modern art is the largest category by far], The Old Masters market has doubled in value in two years. The peaks reached in the Old Masters segment (whose market is very contracted for Western signatures) were largely, here too, generated by the rebalancing of the Chinese art market towards other segments. China is in fact the champion for sales of Old Masters (its market is by far the densest) with a total for the segment of more than $704 million in 2011 vs. $248 million in the UK, $128 million in the USA and $46 million in France. After the Modern Qi Baishi, the artist with the best annual auction result was indeed the Old Master Wang Meng. His ink on paper Zhi Chuan moving to Mountain fetched Â¥350 million ($54 million) on 4 June 2011 at Poly International.
• The number of contemporary works of art sold has more than tripled over the decade. In 2011, more than 41,000 Contemporary works sold worldwide, a record number which generated a revenue total of over $1.26 billion compared with $87.7 million in 2001. Contemporary art certainly has the wind in its sails, but it has not become unaffordable since 62% of Contemporary works sold for less than $5,000 in 2011.
• The global unsold rate has been above 35% since 2008. In 2011, it dipped below this threshold to 34.8% despite a 7% increase in the number of lots offered at auctions.
• The most expensive “1%” of all lots sold generated 58.5% of the world’s total auction revenue in 2011. Hence, the remaining 99% of auction results generated less than half of the entire market’s revenue. Again, it is not surprising that China accounts for the largest share of this “1%” (50%) with the USA representing 23% and the UK 20%.

Photo Credit: Christoph Morlinghaus (the 2006 Armory Show)/Courtesy of New York Magazine