Lyonel Feininger’s “Jesuiten III” (1915), left, and Paul Signac’s “Arrière du Tub” (1888) are among the works up for auction.
This spring auction houses are touting stunning images by masters like Rothko and Warhol, Bacon and de Kooning. Price estimates are equally stunning, reflecting the fight for market share between the archrivals Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Their competition has never been deadlier, riskier or more expensive.
“Study From Innocent X” (1962) by Francis Bacon.
Warhol’s 1963 artwork “Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I).”
For several years Sotheby’s has been lagging as Christie’s has consistently won the most coveted property. So in putting together this season’s big evening sales, which begin on Tuesday, Sotheby’s has been even more aggressive than usual, offering sellers supergenerous guarantees — undisclosed minimum prices paid to the sellers regardless of a sale’s outcome — that are in many cases higher than records for the artists. Christie’s too has estimated many prized artworks at new price levels.
According to recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Sotheby’s has promised sellers nearly $300 million in guarantees for property being sold this spring and summer. Since Christie’s is privately held, it is not required to disclose such financial information, but executives there say it has about the same amount of money tied up in funds it has committed for sellers.
Were some unforeseen event to happen during the next two weeks to depress world markets and scare off buyers, the auction houses could be stuck with warehouses filled with expensive art. But if buyers’ hefty appetite for great paintings, sculptures and drawings continues, both companies could turn some tidy profits, though not nearly as much as they would have were there not so many other financial strings attached. Still, they could lose tens of millions of dollars as a result of overambitious financing.
Both companies are reacting to pressure from sellers who, having seen how prices have escalated, are demanding sweet deals. In addition to guarantees Sotheby’s and Christie’s are routinely giving consignors a percentage of the fees it charges buyers, significantly cutting into potential profits.
“The market has moved significantly over the last six months, and our expectations have risen with it,” said Brett Gorvy, a co-head of postwar and contemporary art for Christie’s worldwide. “We have had to take a leap of faith in our belief that we have reached a new price threshold.”
Both Mr. Gorvy and Tobias Meyer, director of contemporary art for Sotheby’s worldwide, said they took into account recent private sales, in particular the much-publicized deals that the entertainment magnate and art collector David Geffen made six months ago. A gifted collector with a sure eye and deep pockets, Mr. Geffen sold several modern masterpieces, including paintings by de Kooning, Pollock and Jasper Johns, so rare that many of today’s richest hedge fund managers paid top prices, realizing that works of such stature would not be for sale again.
This same now-or-never psychology is driving the back-to-back auctions over the next two weeks. What distinguishes this spring from past seasons is how definitively tastes have changed. The spotlight is not on pricey Impressionist and modern paintings, as it has traditionally been, but on postwar and blue-chip contemporary art.
Sellers this season, betting on the market’s upward spiral, include seasoned collectors like David Rockefeller, the philanthropist and chairman emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art; Mr. Geffen; the advertising mogul Charles Saatchi; and the filmmaker Oliver Stone.
Sotheby’s has two staggering paintings. By far the most talked about is a seminal abstract canvas by Mark Rothko: “White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose),” a dreamy pink painting from 1950 that is considered a prime example of his abstract works. Its provenance is every bit as rare as the painting itself. The seller is Mr. Rockefeller, a prolific donor who, when he realized how much his Rothko was worth, decided to cash in on a rising market to use the money for other philanthropic projects.
Which name — Rothko or Rockefeller — carries more magic is anyone’s guess, but Sotheby’s is relentlessly marketing the painting. Top clients have received special white hardback catalogs. And super-rich collectors who were given private viewings of the painting were presented with special gift bags, compliments of Sotheby’s, that included catalogs of a 1998-99 traveling Rothko retrospective, during which the painting was on view at institutions like the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
Its $40 million estimate is nearly twice the previous auction record for a Rothko painting, $22.4 million paid at Christie’s in 2005. Its guarantee is more than that; experts familiar with the negotiations say Sotheby’s has promised Mr. Rockefeller $46 million, not to mention giving him a lion’s share of the buyer’s premium.
Mr. Rockefeller bought the painting in 1960 for less than $10,000.
“Nothing like this has come on the market,” Mr. Meyer said. Asked about the aggressive deals he has made with sellers this spring, he added: “This is the market with the biggest growth factor, so you have to be aggressive about it. Why not?”
The other star work in Sotheby’s sale on May 15 is “Study From Innocent X,” a 1962 painting by Francis Bacon. The first in his series based on Velázquez’s “Portrait of Pope Innocent X” (1650), a rich red canvas with a full-length version of one of Bacon’s signature contorted characters. It is estimated at $30 million, more than the record $27.5 million for a Bacon paid at Christie’s in London in February. Christie’s has its share of standouts, and it too has produced separate catalogs for some of its big-ticket items. Among the best is Warhol’s “Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I),” from 1963. A rare example of the famous “Death and Disaster” series, it depicts a photo from a 1963 issue of Newsweek that showed a man whose car had crashed, impaling him on a telephone pole. Christie’s estimates it will bring in $25 million to $35 million, another record estimate.
Younger artists are conspicuously absent from the Sotheby’s and Christie’s sales; that market is now dominated by Phillips, de Pury & Company, the smaller Chelsea firm. But even its sale on May 17 is somewhat tamer than in years past, offering a smattering of mostly well-known names whose work has been seen on the walls of Chelsea galleries. (Michael McGinnis, head of Phillips’s contemporary-art department, said about 30 percent of the material in the auction is being sold by dealers.)
Dealer property can also be found in the Impressionist and modern sales; Christie’s auction on Wednesday has several works that have been on the market recently. But it also has a few paintings and watercolors with star potential, among them Signac’s “Arrière du Tub” (1888), named for a boat whose stern is in the foreground of the painting. It is expected to bring $6 million to $8 million.
Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern sale on Tuesday is bigger and more expensive, and it has fresher material. Highlights include a colorful 1915 painting by Lyonel Feininger; a group of Cézanne watercolors; and an important Giacometti sculpture being sold by Mr. Geffen.
Putting together the Impressionist and modern art sales hasn’t been easy this season, since no big estates came on the market, nor were any big restitution cases settled. For the most part collectors are holding on to their art.
“People still expect the market to keep rising,” said David Norman, Sotheby’s director for Impressionist and modern art worldwide. “Had they been fearful of a market decline, we would have seen a rush to sell. And this spring that didn’t happen.”
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