Tag Archives: buying fine art

The Value of Picasso’s “Le Reve”

Le Reve, 1932 by Pablo Picasso has had quite the adventure since its creation. Created in 1932 by Picasso, this work was originally part of the collection of Victor and Sally Ganz who purchased the work in 1941 for $7,000. Put up for auction by the family in 1997, this work sold for $48 million to casino magnate Steve Wynn.

Le Reve, 1932 by Pablo Picasso

Almost a decade later in 2006, Wynn had the unfortunate accident of putting his elbow through the work. Now seven years later, fully restored, Wynn has sold the piece for a record $155 million to Steven Cohen the founder of SAC Capital. Cohen, along with Wynn, is one of the world’s biggest art collectors, with works by Van Gogh, Manet, de Kooning, Picasso, Cezanne, Warhol, Johns and Richter.

So what makes this piece so valuable? The first is the impeccable provenance and the second is the historical aspect of the work.  A portrait of Picasso’s famed muse Marie-Therese Walter, this work was created in 1932. Married and 45, Picasso spotted Walter in 1927 on a Paris street when she was 17. She would be the artist’s greatest love for the next decade, inspiring numerous paintings and sculptures.

The Marie-Therese period hasn’t always been considered Picasso’s finest hour in the art market as only his paintings from 1932 seem to hit it big. This can be seen with Le Reve’s auction in 1997, and in 2010 when Nude, Green Leaves and Bust sold for $106.5 million. La Lecture then went for $40.5 million in 2011 and Femme assise pres d’une fenetre sold for $45 million in February this year. So one can only assume that Cohen got a good investment, restoration and all.

Information Taken From:

Billionaire Steve Cohen pays $155m for Picasso’s Le Reve by Rebecca Clancy

All hail the comeback kid: surrealism

MoMA is doing things first, as usual.

This month, the Museum of Modern Art, New York opens the first major museum exhibition to explore the early years of René Magritte’s unique brand of Surrealism. Salvador Dalí has also been granted his own one-man show at the Pompidou Center, Paris, opening in November. The institutional bustle makes it seem as though Surrealism’s stars are aligning.

"Les Amants", an early work by Magritte showing his interest in the hidden truth

“René Magritte 1926-1938” certainly reflects a wider trend in the art market. With a dwindling amount of high-quality Impressionist and modern artworks up for sale, auction totals in these areas – at one point astronomical – are leveling off. Surrealism – the erotically charged, awkward step brother of Impressionism – is finally having its day as top collectors search for the next big thing.

And works by Joan Miró, Magritte and Dalí are selling like hotcakes. Buyers have even started showing an interest in early Magrittes, traditionally overlooked in favor of his mature works.

Impressive records have been set in the past 18 months.  Dalí’s 1929 portrait of Paul Eluard, which was bought for a one-time record $2.3 million in 1989 at Christie’s New York, sold last February at Sotheby’s London for £13.5 million ($21.7 million). That landmark price for a Surrealist work sold at auction was toppled at the same auction house in June 2012, when Miró’s Peinture (Etoile bleue), 1927, went for a cool £23.5 million ($36.9 million).

The $37 million painting: “Peinture (Etoile bleue)”

Impactful yet demure, the works of Magritte seem but distant cousins of Dalí’s super-erotic dreamscapes. The connection is the intersection between waking life and dreams that both artists explore, and the unsettling effect created thereby. Specifically rendered detail in these impossible images betrays a mutual desire to depict an imagined world with enough precision as to make it real.

Writing for Artinfo, Judd Tully queries, “Given the recent spike in prices for all these sometimes nightmarish explorations of the 20th-century psyche, one naturally wonders: What is it about Surrealism that speaks to today’s collectors?”

The allure is surely based in the opportunity to own a small part of the fantasies and dreams of a most eventful century. Seeing an artist from your collection awarded a major retrospective can’t hurt, either.

Masters of Printmaking: Picasso and His Original Lithographs

There is no denying that Pablo Picasso (Malaga, 1881 – Mougins, 1973) is the greatest artist of the 20th century. Loved and admired around the world, Picasso’s artworks are a symbol of creativity and ingenuity.  Ranging from paintings, ceramics, glass, lithography, linocuts and etchings, everything Picasso created from Cubism to Modern Art inspired and influenced every artist who worked alongside him and after him.

Pablo Picasso's Original Lithograph "L'étreinte (The Embrace)"

The importance of Picasso’s work and the longevity of its value are what make his artwork the most sought after works on the art market today. Picasso was an inventor, and loved to explore different mediums and processes as it allowed for a creative input and controlled output. Renowned for his immense skill and range as an artist, Picasso mastered the art of printmaking. His stunning original lithographs are amongst the most brilliant works in his artistic oeuvre.  Representative of his varied artistic styles, Picasso’s lithographs depict images and techniques that extend from his brief post-Impressionistic period to Cubism and beyond.

Pablo Picasso's Original Lithograph "Nature morte à l'aubergine (Still Life with Eggplant), 1946"

As some background, a lithograph is a printmaking process where the design is drawn or painted on a flat surface of a stone with a greasy crayon or ink. The design is chemically fixed on the stone with a weak solution and in printing, the stone is flooded with water which is absorbed everywhere except where repelled by the greasy ink. Oil-based printer’s ink is then rolled on the stone, which is repelled in turn by the water-soaked areas and accepted only by the drawn design. A piece of paper is laid on the stone and it is run through the press with light pressure, the final print showing neither a raised nor embossed quality but lying entirely on the surface of the paper. The artist, in this case Picasso, would then hand-sign the work to show his approval and claim ownership.

Pablo Picasso's Original Lithograph "Dwarf Dancer, 1966"

Picasso himself was rather involved in his lithography process as he enjoyed improving upon it, and his art, by adding different colors or mixing up materials. Take our Still Life with Eggplant (1946) original lithograph as an example. Cool tones are mixed with vibrant colors that combine to convey the texture of paint, clearly depicting Picasso’s soft, swirling strokes. Or in our newest addition, L’étreinte (1966), that beautifully depicts the influence art nouveau and impressionism had on Picasso with softer, less abstract edges, and almost pastel like brush marks. In the striking original lithograph, Dwarf Dancer from the ‘Barcelona’ suite (1966), Picasso utilizes the brush in an energetic layering of pure hues to create a vibrant scene full of motion and activity.

Pablo Picasso's Original Lithograph "L'Attente (The Wait), 1966"

Full of rich painterly texture and impressionistic use of color the original lithograph, L’Attente (1966) illustrates the delicacy and grace Picasso used to portray his female models. Picasso perfectly captures the essence of his subjects, creating a work instilled with a sense of intrigue and emotion. Perhaps this ability to clearly depict the nature of his subjects from his vast and creative viewpoints is what best defines Picasso’s stunning original lithographs.

 

Spring Auctions Powered by “Trophy Hunters”

The auction season thus far has been truly exceptional. Record breaking sales and artist records are being made all over the place at Christie’s and Sotheby’s due to the rarity of the works being offered and those buyers who covet them. “Super-trophies” are what these rare works with strong provenance are known as, and the “Trophy hunters” are all too happy to buy them up which is great news for the art market and those invested in it through their own purchases of fine art.

Alexander Calder "Lily of Force"

One of four versions of Edvard Munch’s angst-filled pastel on board masterpiece “The Scream” (1895) sold for a record $119,922,500 at Sotheby’s, becoming the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction and the first to break the $100 million mark. A record breaking Mark Rothko oil on canvas, “Orange, Red, Yellow” (1961) sold for $86,882,500 from Christie’s Postwar and Contemporary Art evening sale in which 11 artist records were set while 40 of the 56 lots sold made over a million dollars. An Alexander Calder sculpture “Lily of Force” (1945) went for $18,562,500.

In total, the Postwar and Contemporary Art evening sale at Christie’s delivered $388,488,000, while Sotheby’s posted a $266.6 million evening Contemporary Sale this week, and a $330,568,500 result for their Impressionist and Modern sale last week.

Five artist records were set in the Sotheby’s Contemporary Sale. Francis Bacon’s ferociously distorted “Figure writing Reflected in a Mirror” (1976) and Roy Lichtenstein’s pretty, “Sleeping Girl” (1964) both sold for $44,882,500. While in the Impressionist and Modern Sale, Edgar Degas’s sublime “Danseuse au Repos” (1879), sold for $37 million.

Edgar Degas "Danseuse au Repos" (1879)

With so many great works available and the stock rising on artists such as Calder and Degas, now has never been a better time to jump into the art world and start collecting. Even if you can’t afford those million dollar originals, there is art available for everybody’s price range and taste.

Where in the world is Michael Hammer?

PIERRE LAGRANGE WANTS TO KNOW

Pierre Lagrange is upset and no one can blame him. Untitled 1950, a painting ostensibly created by Jackson Pollock is proving impossible to sell, much less return or authenticate. It would help if Knoedler & Co. Gallery, where he bought the work in 2007 for $17 million, were still open (it closed the day after he sent notice that the painting contains pigments unavailable until years after Pollock’s death).

"Untitled 1950", a possibly-Pollock

It would help if Lagrange’s lawyers could locate owner Michael Hammer and subpoena him into providing documents and testimony in a lawsuit that has captivated the art world over the past months (he has ducked 11 attempts to serve him, at the same time maintaining that the gallery’s closing was unconnected to Lagrange’s attempt to return his painting: “I made a well considered and difficult decision to close the business and expect to realize significant savings in ongoing expenses”).

It would help if Glafira Rosales, a small-time Long Island art dealer, would divulge her source for the painting, which she sold to the renowned New York gallery alongside about 20 other fabulous, previously-unknown Abstract Expressionist works (she’s invoked her fifth amendment rights, and we may never know from whence they came). Heck, it would clarify things if Ann Freedman, who was Knoedler’s president at the time and closed the sale with Lagrange, hadn’t spent upwards of $500,000 on paintings by Pollock, Motherwell and Rothko supplied to her by Rosales for her personal collection.

Lagrange, a London hedge fund manager, bought the probably-Pollock in spite of its very fuzzy provenance and absence from the artist’s catalogue raisonné; he maintains that Freedman had assured him it would be included in an upcoming revision, which she denies. Either way, he probably didn’t know that a client had recently demanded his money back for a different Pollock from Freedman– who paid up promptly – after the International Foundation for Art Research declined to confirm the authenticity. What persuaded him, beyond great salesmanship and an irresistible artwork, was probably Knoedler’s reputation as a venerated gallery with a shining 165-year history. And this, everyone is speculating, is how Rosales could have gotten her incredible and unlikely cache of Abstract Expressionist masterpieces onto the art market in the first place.

The lack of provenance, absence of concrete authentication almost too-good-to-be-true nature of the artworks that eventually brought Knoedler between $27 and $37 million in profit were explained away by the Knoedler name; on one side there was Rosales whispering changing tales about an anonymous and wealthy Mexican buyer, while on the other stood the tall, silver-haired Freedman, who seems to believe to this day in the authenticity of this group of artworks. Various pieces have come into question over the past few years, with Lagrange’s being the most high-profile – and priciest.

In regards to the posthumous paints in his Untitled 1950, Freedman has noted that artists were often given experimental pigments to use before they became officially available to the public.  Furthermore, the son of the man who created these paints for artists such as Pollock explains that separate elements for a pigment exist prior to its creation. Pigment dating, in other words, is not always decisive. The whole truth may never come out, as long as Michael Hammer remains in hiding, Glafira Rosales stays mum, and Ann Freedman insists, “The works are of a five-star quality.” As Patricia Cohen writes in the New York Times, “Whether any lawsuit or criminal investigation will provide a definitive answer to the mystery of the paintings is far from certain.”

What remains of Knoedler

It seems to me that the best possible outcome for all beleaguered parties would be an official stamp of authenticity for each Ab-Exp painting in question. But then detractors from the messy, masculine, abstract style wouldn’t get to make their jokes about a fifth-grader – or forger – being able to create the same thing.

 

Information taken from:

Patricia Cohen, Suitable for Suing, Feb. 22, 2012, New York Times.

The Knoedlers’ Meltdown: Inside the Forgery Scandal and Federal investigations, April 6, 2012, Vanity Fair.

Rachel Corbett, Lawyers Chase Elusive Figure in Knoedler Lawsuit, artnet. 

The Resilience of the Art Market

Artprice recorded that last year, 2011, was the best ever for the sales of art at auction. With 10.7 billion dollars in earnings for 2011, artists such as Picasso, Degas, Zhang, and Warhol helped make 2011 a stand our year for art. When compared to 2010’s total of 9.5 billion dollars, it is easy to see the confidence and staying power of the art market as a veritable asset in this economy that cannot be ignored.

Picasso's "La Lecture" Sold for $40.5 million

This is due to several factors that the Art Newspaper and Artprice have been discussing for quite some time. In their January 2012 edition, the Art Newspaper explains that the art market is not a single entity but smaller markets that are combined under one name which means that the profits for 2011 do not even include the private sales in galleries or between individuals thereby making the revenue gains even more substantial. The profits were derived from the driving demand for what the Newspaper described as new buyers liking the “branded nature of contemporary art”, mixed with the demand for fresh and correctly estimated property.

Zhang Xiaogang’s “Forever Lasting Love (Triptych)” -sold for $10.2 million

Zhang Xiaogang’s “Forever Lasting Love (Triptych)” Sold for $10.2 million

Art Price’s Art Market Insight features two article’s titled “2011 from the AMCI’s viewpoint” and “The global art market – an overview of 2011”. These articles reiterate that the art market confidence is at an all-time high, but with a focus on the international factors that lead, and continue to led to, the market’s success. The financial markets closed the year 1% down while the art market posted a 15% increase in revenue. The first part of 2011 saw lots of new records being set with over 6.3 billion dollars in revenue between January and June alone. This was aided by revenue coming in from China, which became the world’s leading fine art marketplace in 2011 (China alone accounted for 36% of the global art market).

Unfortunately with the European debt crisis, the art market fluctuated from July to August. However with the success of international art fairs and the late Contemporary art auctions, buyers were certainly more than optimistic about the value of their investments and continue to be. Going into 2012 the art market doesn’t seem to be worried as China maintains its hold, and Modern and Contemporary art are as popular as ever. So when buying a work of art in this economy you should feel confident, because there’s nowhere to go but up.

What Will Happen to Warhol?

The Andy Warhol Foundation has developed a rather convoluted reputation in their quest to catalog and certify the vast collection of over 100,000 (across all media) works that Warhol created. The Foundation Board has made several controversial decisions regarding the authentication of specific prints and screen prints that have landed them with millions of dollars’ worth of legal bills and a negative reputation as the monopolizing entity of the Warhol market. However a collector may feel about their role in the art market, they play an important one. In an interesting turn of events this past month, the Andy Warhol Foundation announced that it will dissolve its authentication board at the beginning of 2012.

Wahol- Blackglama

What does this mean for the collector? Will panic spread through the art market as Warhol’s go unregulated? That does not seem to be the case as the Art Newspaper brilliantly discusses in The problem with authenticating Warhol.  In the article they note the facts” that none of the top five Warhol works sold at auction have been stamped by the board…”. With only 16 out of 49 works for sale this past month having been authenticated by the board, there is no reason for collectors to fear.

All of the top record-breakers are, however, detailed in the artist’s catalogue raisonné that the Warhol Foundation has compiled. There are three completed volumes of the catalogue that document Warhol’s paintings, prints, screen prints, and sculpture until 1974. The foundation’s mission is to make a complete catalogue of all of Warhol’s works and will continue to review works submitted for inclusion in future editions, but in its own time (unlike the authentication board, which took requests).

The Foundation stepping away from the market to focus on scholarship will undoubtedly led to good things. A more complete catalog of Warhol’s work will aid the art market in regards to authenticity as the new scholarship will include his drawings and photographs, which currently do not exist in a cohesive form. When looking at the Warhol works the Authentication Board has been exposed to, there is no cause for concern as only 6,000 of Warhol’s more than 100,000 works have gone through the authentication process. Thus the only advice to offer a collector is to practice due diligence in regards to researching the provenance of a piece and feel 100% comfortable and confident in their purchase.

Investing in Art in a Smoke-and-Mirrors Financial Market

The stock market is in marked decline and bonds are showing pitifully low returns. Interest rates are at a minimum, as low as .5% in some countries. Given that the sub-prime mortgage fiasco kicked off this recession in the first place, real estate has not been looking too attractive as a haven for liquid assets.

To be sure, the national spectacle that was the debt ceiling crisis did not help things. Ending just hours before the United States ran out of money to pay its bills, the problem has actually been delayed, not resolved. Fitch Ratings warned that though the debt ceiling agreement reached Congress represents a step in the right direction, the U.S. still lacks, “a credible plan to reduce the budget deficit to a level that would secure [its] AAA status over the medium-term.” The threat still remains that the country’s credit rating may take a dive, fueled by lenders’ concerns that $14 trillion in debt is unsustainable.

Those who had never imagined the United States might be unable to settle its accounts are perhaps imagining a similar scenario played out in their own personal finances. For the individual, it may not be an option to file away these concerns for a later date. In the face of such an unstable financial market, investing in tangible assets can be an answer. Precious metals such as gold and silver are proving to be safe investments, having risen 16% and 30% in value respectively in 2011 alone. In the United Kingdom, you can turn to the Wine Investment Fund, where annualized returns range between 8% and 20%. And then there is the Fine Art Fund Group, whose investors are currently enjoying returns above 25%.

Even if you can’t afford the Fund’s $250,000 base level investment, individuals can build l art collections with personal and monetary value. Though numbers are tumbling right and left, the art market is going strong. Christie’s closed its Paris Contemporary Art auction at over €8.4 million ($3.8 million) on May 31, 2011, and showed similar numbers between its two Impressionist and Modern Art sales just weeks earlier. The auction giant recently hosted an entire event dedicated to Picasso ceramics, where pieces sold between $800 and $134,000. Such an extraordinary price range underscores the accessibility of art for investors with all budgets.

Whether you choose to fill your portfolio with Modern Masters such as Chagall, Miró, and Picasso, or contemporary favorites like Warhol, Yvaral, or Vasarely, you can’t go wrong.  Art is one of the few tangible assets that will simultaneously enrich your aesthetic life and ensure your financial wellbeing, over the long term.

Resources:
1. “U.S. Stocks Manage to Eke out a Gain.” New York Times. August 4, 2011.
2. “Gold, fine wine, art or under the bed: what’s the safest place for your cash?”Guardian UK. July 25, 2011.
3. Christie’s: Auction Results, May 2011.

London Calling

Impressionist and Modern sales were held this week in London with strong results. Sotheby’s ended with $157,543,910 in sales and Christie’s ended at $227,111,142. The stars of both nights were artists we currently sell. Pablo Picasso’s “Couple le Baiser” went for $10,621,070 which is 18 times higher than its previously recorded auction in 1993. Meanwhile, Picasso’s “Homme a la Pipe et Nu Couche” sold for $7,800,591.  Lastly, Picasso’s “Jeune Fille Endormie” and “Femme Assise, Robe Bleue” respectively sold for $21,866,588 and $29,133,148.

Joan Miró’s abstraction “Femme a la Voix de Rossignol dans la Nuit” sold for $7,709,608 while Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s “La Liseuse” sold for $9,165,339. “l’Empire des Lumieres,”  by René Magritte went for $3,888,313 and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s widely exhibited “La Source (Nu Allonge)” sold for $8,241,788.

European buyers have been dominating the sales, but U.S. buyers have made an impact as well. This only goes to show that art is a great investment at any price level, in any country. With the steady return of good sales, art is stronger than it has been in quite while.

Art Basel: Indications to Come?

Art Basel is often described as the world’s top fair for modern and contemporary works and it opens June 15, 2011 with over 300 galleries displaying works for a combined total worth around $1.75 billion, according to specialist insurer Hiscox.

Art Basel features galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. More than 2,500 artists, ranging from the great masters of Modern art to the latest generation of emerging stars, are represented in the show’s multiple sections. The exhibition includes the highest-quality paintings, sculptures, drawings, installations, photographs, video and editioned works. Last year, 62,500 people attended Art 41 Basel, including art collectors, art dealers, artists, curators and other art enthusiasts.

In the VIP preview that occurred June 14, 2011 there was well over millions of dollars of art sold. Even if one does not attend the fair or collect the artists represented by the galleries, the sales at the fair are excellent indicators of the market for both price and mood. Although the art market has yet to regain the giddy heights of the boom that preceded the 2009 slump, the million-dollar sales at Art Basel tell that the market is strong and worthy of investment.