Tapped Out?
By CAROL VOGEL | Published: October 29, 2008

A $60 million painting by Kazimir Malevich. A $40 million self-portrait by Francis Bacon. It hardly seems the ideal moment to be selling such pricey art. As Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips de Pury brace for their big fall auctions in New York, starting with a sale of 71 Impressionist and Modern paintings, drawings and sculptures at Sotheby’s on Monday night, anxiety is the dominant mood.

Only 10 days ago, Sotheby’s reported a loss of $15 million in guarantees — the undisclosed amount that the houses promise to sellers regardless of the outcome of a sale — from recent auctions in Hong Kong and London.

Millions of dollars of art went unsold at those September and October sales, with many works going for well below their estimates. Since then auction house officials have been busy trying to get sellers to lower their expectations. Much of the art up for auction this week and next was secured early in the summer, when the world seemed a far different place. Now, with the net worth of so many buyers plummeting, auction houses have been trying to persuade sellers to lower their reserves, that is, the undisclosed minimum price that a bidder must meet for the art to be sold.

“Prices of all assets have fallen — stocks, gold, oil, real estate — and it would be unrealistic to expect works of art to be immune to the market’s pressures,” said Marc Porter, president of Christie’s in America. “We are actively encouraging consignors to set reasonable reserves.”

Minimizing risk is the message of the moment. While Sotheby’s has said that it has provided only half the number of guarantees it did a year ago, the company still has outstanding guarantees of $285.5 million.

Unlike Sotheby’s, Christie’s is not a public company, and is not obligated to release figures, but officials there acknowledge having a similar level of risk. As for buyers, the message is a little trickier. With them, Mr. Porter said, Christie’s is making the argument that the objects they desire “might not reappear on the market next season at an even lower price.”

The major sellers this season are hardly novices: they include savvy collectors like the financier Henry Kravis and his wife, Marie-Josée Kravis, president of the Museum of Modern Art, who are selling Degas’s “Dancer in Repose.” Other sellers include Jennifer Stockman, president of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; and Kathy Fuld, another MoMA trustee and the wife of Richard S. Fuld Jr., the troubled former chief executive of the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers. All of these collectors have been given generous guarantees that some admitted were hard to refuse.

The big question is who will be buying this expensive art. With hedge-fund traders, Russian oligarchs and wealthy Middle Easterners having taken a hit in the financial markets, the auction houses, whistling in the dark, are hoping for a return of old money.

“Americans who fled when prices began soaring will jump back into the market but at a different price level,” said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art. Among the standouts in the fall lineup at Sotheby’s are paintings like Edvard Munch’s “Vampire” (1894), priced to bring more than $35 million, and an Yves Klein wall relief estimated at more than $25 million. Christie’s is offering a 1934 portrait of Picasso’s mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter estimated at $18 million to $25 million and a Basquiat painting at $12 million and $16 million. “I still hold the belief that the great works will find buyers,” said Guy Bennett, of Christie’s. But at what price remains to be seen.

Safety Net for a Malevich

The Russian avant-garde artist Kasimir Malevich painted this “Suprematist Composition” in 1916, the same year he wrote his Suprematist manifesto arguing for the pre-eminence of emotion in creating works of art.

For years the painting, an abstract composition of bright blocks and rods of color, resided in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam with 14 others by the artist.

Last spring, descendants of Malevich gained title to the painting and four others from the collection in an accord with the Stedelijk after a court battle in the United States. Now, after the heirs tried to sell the five paintings privately for around $300 million but failed, they are trying to sell one of them at auction. Often public auctions are a last resort as well as a way to reach an international pool of possible buyers.

The work will be offered Monday night at Sotheby’s, where officials predict that it will fetch $60 million. Determined to offset some of the risk, Sotheby’s has lined up what it calls an irrevocable bid on the painting. That means the auction house has a buyer who has contractually agreed to purchase the painting for an undisclosed sum.

If someone else is willing to pay more, the original bidder will get a share of what is called the upside: the difference between what he was willing to pay and the higher price.

Knowing When to Leap

A museum retrospective can often boost the value of an artist’s work, particularly when the piece at issue is included in the show.



The canvas, which was featured in a show of the artist’s work at Tate Britain in London earlier this year, is expected to bring $4.5 million to $6.5 million.

“Talk about timing,” Ms. Stockman said of the consignment. She said she secured a guarantee, so “it became almost impossible not to take advantage of the sale.”

Ms. Stockman’s guarantee from Christie’s includes other works she is selling as well, including one of Richard Prince’s nurse paintings, “Last Resort Nurse,” from 2003, which is expected to fetch $5 million to $7 million.

Although it was not included in a recent retrospective of the artist’s work at the Guggenheim Museum, prices for Mr. Prince’s nurse paintings have skyrocketed recently.

At a Sotheby’s auction in London in February 2007, a new Georgian collector shocked a salesroom by spending $11.2 million on a painting by Mr. Doig, said to be intended for a museum in Kiev.

“It was now or never,” Ms. Stockman said. “This will enable us to collect more. I’m in it for the long term.”

Too Many Warhols?

Prices for less-than-stellar Warhols have been softening recently, so this fall’s auctions will test the Pop master’s staying power.

Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s are selling Warhols of all dates and subjects, including “Set of Four Boxes: Brillo Soap Pads; Campbell’s Tomato Juice; Del Monte Peach Halves; Heinz Tomato Ketchup” at Sotheby’s.

The sculpture is composed of four wood boxes, each from the 1960s, that are silk-screened to look like products and belong to Jane Holzer, the New York socialite who was known as Baby Jane Holzer when she was a regular in Warhol’s entourage in the 1960s. It carries an estimate of $2.5 million to $3.5 million.

At Christie’s, Aaron Fleischman, a Washington lawyer and collector, is parting with an example of one of the artist’s Mao portraits. The small 1973 canvas, measuring about 26 by 22 inches, is priced to sell for $4.5 million to $6.5 million. In November of 2006, a far larger Mao, measuring 82 by 61 inches, sold for $17.3 million to Joseph Lau, a Hong Kong collector. In those halcyon days, Warhol’s Mao images appealed to any number of Asian collectors. The question of who will step up and bid this season is another matter.

No Guarantee for This One

EARLY last summer a New York collector negotiated a hefty guarantee from Christie’s in consigning his 1964 “Study for Self-Portrait” by Francis Bacon for the fall auctions. In the months it took to hammer out details of the contract, economic turmoil grew so worrisome that Christie’s got cold feet and withdrew the guarantee.

The auction house persuaded the seller to offer the Bacon anyway, and it is one of the highlights of Christie’s Nov. 12 sale. Experts say that the full-length portrait, in which the artist is shown sitting on a bed, his body twisted from head to toe, should sell for around $40 million.

Christie’s is obviously hoping to capitalize on the record prices paid for Bacon’s works recently. A 1976 Bacon triptych went for $86.3 million in May at Sotheby’s in New York, and a 1975 self-portrait brought $34.4 million at Christie’s in London in June. Those were among the highest prices ever paid for the British artist, who is the subject of a current exhibition at the Tate in London that travels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in May.

Still, there is no getting around the fact that “the market has changed,” said Brett Gorvy, co-head of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art department.

A Puzzle

Why are these two 1964 sculptures by John Chamberlain, roughly the same size and made the same year, priced so differently?

Christie’s estimates that “Spike,” from the estate of the philanthropist Alice Lawrence, the widow of the Manhattan real estate developer Sylvan Lawrence, will bring $900,000 to $1.2 million. “Ca-D’Oro,” which is being sold by an unidentified Midwestern collector at Sotheby’s, carries an estimate of $1.8 million to $2.2 million.

Both of these colorful crushed metal sculptures are from the artist’s prime period, when he used everyday objects, like abandoned car parts. He often sprayed as many as 100 coats of lacquer on the steel to achieve the surface he desired.

Estate property is generally more reasonably priced, and Christie’s has given the Lawrence heirs a guarantee. That means the auction house rather than the estate can set the prices. The one at Sotheby’s seems to have been estimated at the whim of an auction house expert — or possibly a hungry seller.

Catnip for Connoisseurs

A hint of schadenfreude might have been in the air when gossip-mongers delightedly spread the news that the Museum of Modern Art trustee Kathy Fuld and her husband, Richard S. Fuld Jr., the former chief executive of Lehman Brothers, would be selling 16 postwar works on paper at Christie’s on Nov. 12. Still, their offerings could well be among the biggest draws of the sale, potentially attracting old-time collectors who bowed out of the market when it became overheated.

Far lower in price than paintings by these modern masters, they are seminal images of the highest quality that only occasionally come to market.

Mrs. Fuld, who began collecting works on paper in the mid-1980s, is parting with rare examples of drawings by Barnett Newman, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning and Agnes Martin. Among the best in the group are three from de Kooning’s “Woman” series, including a 1951 example of a Cubist figure. Another is Gorky’s “Study for Agony I,” a graphite, crayon and ink wash on paper executed in 1946-47, related to a painting from the same year that is in MoMA’s collection. Mrs. Fuld bought her drawing at Christie’s in 1996 for $370,000. It is now estimated to bring $2.2 million to $2.8 million.

Christie’s officials are so confident about the drawings, which are expected to bring $15 million to $20 million in all, that it gave Mrs. Fuld a guarantee that is said to be about $20 million.
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Controversial Pollock for sale in Toronto -Vicky Tam, CBC News

Last Updated: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 | 3:41 PM ET Comments28Recommend23
"Who The $#%& Is Jackson Pollock" executive producer Don Hewitt joins Teri Horton, the subject of the film at its New York premiere, Wednesday, Nov. 08, 2006. (Dave Allocca, AP-Picturehouse/The Canadian Press)

A Jackson Pollock painting, bought for $5 in a thrift store, is for sale at a Toronto gallery with an asking price of $50 million US. The painting, made famous by the 2006 PBS documentary, Who the #$%& is Jackson Pollock, is being exhibited for the first time at Gallery Delisle in east Toronto from Nov. 13-27. Teri Horton, a 76-year-old retired truck driver, bought the painting in 1992 as a gag gift, not knowing who the painter was at the time. Since the painting, nicknamed Teri's Find, was authenticated forensically she has refused all American offers and sent it to Canada to find a foreign buyer.

The painting is a 1.7-by-1.2 metres canvas with red, yellow, grey and blue paint dripped on it. When American auction houses denied Horton visual authentication of the painting, she turned to science for validation.

"I've been through this with the U.S.A. market and they turn their back on forensic science and they won't take a stand for the painting," Horton told CBC News on Tuesday from her mobile home in Costa Mesa, Calif.

"They don’t deserve to have it. I want an international buyer to have it because of that," said Horton. Since receiving forensic authentication, Horton has received and refused offers from American buyers that she describes as unfair. In 2006, one of Pollock's works sold for about $140 million, the highest sum ever to be paid for a painting. Horton's painting was valued at $50 million by experts in the documentary. Horton says she would not reject a higher bid from an American buyer over a foreign one. "I'm not that stupid … but I would much prefer that another country have it," said Horton. Gallery owner Michelle Delisle was brainstorming ideas for an opening event for her six-month-old gallery and approached Horton in late September "as a shot in the dark." After talking on the phone, Delisle flew Horton to Toronto in early October to see the gallery and discuss terms. The contract for the gallery to exhibit and sell the painting was signed on Oct. 17.

"It's been a whirlwind," said Delisle. Both Horton and Delisle say they are unconcerned about being able to sell the painting during the current economic recession.

"That's one market that hasn't fallen yet. Everything else has fallen to pot," said Horton.

After the painting was dismissed by major auction houses, Horton turned to Paul Biro, a Montreal forensic expert, to authenticate it. Biro found a fingerprint matching one on an already-authenticated painting and matching paint in Pollock's studio in New York. Delisle says she believes in the results found by Biro, who authenticated a J.M.W. Turner painting for the Tate Britain.

"If he's good enough for J.M.W. Turner, he's good enough for a Pollock. If the Tate uses him, he's valid in my books," said Delisle. The Toronto gallery's acceptance of the authentication was the main reason Horton said she wanted the painting sold in Canada, but also so she could stay in the background.

"It's become an albatross around my neck," said Horton. "If I were younger I'd say I'd keep my fight up with it but time's creeping up on me and I've got to take some of these principles and stick it and do what's right for my family and the people I want to help."

The money from the painting sale will go toward a trip to Ireland, Horton's ancestral homeland and toward buying her first new car. Horton says she has no plans to move out of her California mobile home and instead wants to help families, including two of her sons, who have lost their homes because of the mortgage crisis. The documentary garnered attention for portraying a truck driver with a Grade 8 education's crusade against the art world. After a crash course in the art world, Horton, who says she is a fan of Norman Rockwell, still doesn't see the beauty in her Pollock.

"Do I personally think it's worth [$50 million]? Hell no. It's worth the $5 I gave for it. It's ugly."