Art sales: nerves still holding

BST 29/04/2008 Telegraph

Colin Gleadell on New York sales

Market news: private art sales This week, the warm-up begins for the big Impressionist and contemporary art auctions in New York, in which the auction rooms hope to rack up as much as $1.8 billion (£900million) in sales. Edvard Munch's Girls on a Bridge was last sold in 1996 In the past three years, totals for these biannual New York auctions, which form the bellwether of the art market, have risen from $598million to $1.75billion last November, and the question is whether they can continue to rise. As each month goes by, tension mounts in anticipation of a major reaction to the global financial crisis. But, so far, the market has stood firm, and sellers hope to take advantage of this while the moment is still ripe. The series opens with Impressionist and modern art works that go on view on Friday prior to being auctioned next week. Among the sellers that can be identified are the actor Sean Connery and the cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, who are both selling works by Egon Schiele; the Nahmad family of international art dealers; and the British collector Graham Kirkham, founder of DFS Furniture. At Sotheby's, the focus is very much on modern art of the 20th century, as opposed to 19th-century Impressionist paintings. This is partly because the latter are becoming much rarer, but also because Sotheby's experts have conceived it that way. "We have buyers for certain things and we source them accordingly," says Simon Shaw, Sotheby's head of Impressionist and modern art in New York. "We wanted to be strong on modern art because it has a broader marketplace. We were not looking so aggressively for Impressionists."

The stars of Shaw's sale are an unusually large and colourful Cubist composition by Fernand Léger that is estimated to fetch a thumping new record at between $35 million and $45million, and Edvard Munch's Girls on a Bridge (1902), painted at the same location as the artist's The Scream, which is also estimated to fetch a record between $24 million and $28million. This painting was last sold in 1996, when it was bought by Graham Kirkham for $7.7 million, and Sotheby's was sufficiently confident to approach him and offer a guaranteed sum for the work.

The Léger, which is owned by the descendants of the German silk manufacturer Hermann Lange, is also guaranteed, as are several works by Alberto Giacometti. A portrait of his young lover, Caroline Tamagno, carries the highest estimate ever placed on a painting by the artist at $10million to $15million.

Prices for works by Giacometti, whose estate has recently come under the management of the powerful Gagosian gallery, have soared in the last year to $11million for a painting and $18million for a sculpture at auction, and some owners are being offered considerably more on the private market, says Shaw, who has six Giacomettis in his sale.

Altogether, Sotheby's has either fully guaranteed or taken part-ownership in works that are expected to fetch at least $126million - roughly half the value of the sale. This could be risky considering the experience of last November when the failure of van Gogh's The Wheat Fields and several other guaranteed works sent its shares plummeting by 30 per cent overnight.

But Sotheby's is not alone: at Christie's flagship Impressionist sale, an almost identical amount has been risked. The main guaranteed work is Monet's The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil, which was bought by the Nahmad family in 1988 for $12.4million and is now estimated to fetch a record $35 million. Is this, though, a bridge too far?

Christie's has also targeted the burgeoning Giacometti market, offering the almost 9ft bronze Grande femme debout II for $18 million together with four other works by the artist. The number of Giacometti works - 11, in total, are included in Sotheby's and Christie's evening sales - is unprecedented and could bring as much as $73million.

The total value of next week's Impressionist and modern art sales is estimated at up to $809million, not quite a record. But in the following week, the stakes will be higher when nearer $990million of post-war and contemporary art goes on sale, the highest amount in history. The star lots are a $70million Francis Bacon triptych at Sotheby's from the collection of the Moueix family of wine producers in France, and a $40 million abstract painting by Mark Rothko being sold by Californian collector Roger Evans at Christie's.

But the level of guarantees - at least $340million, or more than half the value of the evening sales alone - is gargantuan. A collapse in confidence now would send Sotheby's and Christie's reeling.