Colin Gleadell rounds up the latest developments in the art market
Sotheby's and Christie's sold about $9 billion of art last year. But, according to Arne Glimcher, chairman of Pace Wildenstein in New York, private sales by art dealers amount to "two or three times the auction market". In a survey published this week by the American magazine Art News, it is estimated that current annual private art sales are between $25 billion and $30 billion.
An Old Master painting that had been withdrawn from sale when it was discovered that it had been looted by the Nazis from a Polish art dealer, was re-offered by Christie's last week after the painting was restituted to the dealer's heirs. Pieter de Grebber's A Boy, in Profile was bought by London dealer Johnny van Haeften for £46,100, almost double its estimate. But the star of the sale was a tiny 16th-century, Holbein-style portrait of the French "seigneur" Charles de la Rochefoucauld, by the Dutch artist Corneille de Lyon, which sold to a collector for £558,000, five times its estimate. Another version of the painting is in the Louvre museum, but this one, says London dealer Richard Green, who underbid the painting, is probably the primary version. Born in 1915 and still going strong, Mary Fedden has long been one of Britain's most popular artists. Twenty years ago you could, if you were lucky, pick up one of her joyous, Matisse-inspired still-life paintings at the Royal Academy's summer exhibitions for under £2,000. But no longer. Fedden's auction prices have risen to more than £50,000, and at an exhibition (closing next week) of more than 60 of her paintings and watercolours spanning five decades at the Richard Green gallery, prices range from £8,000 for watercolours up to £95,000 for some of the oils. To that must be added an artist's resale royalty payment. Nonetheless Green has sold half the exhibition. One painting still up for grabs is Denny's Flowers, which is priced at £50,000. Another exhibition incorporating more than 120 paintings by Fedden opens at the Portland Gallery in St James's on May 8, and, judging by the gallery's website, those are selling fast, too. |
A devastating report on Art Cologne, Europe's oldest contemporary art fair, has been published on the Saatchi Gallery website and on Artnet.com. Both are written by the outspoken London and New York dealer Kenny Schachter, who claims the fair, which closed 12 days ago, was extremely poorly attended and that, unusually, he didn't sell one thing. This is refreshingly honest, but does not tally with the fair's official report, which lists numerous sales by other galleries. Art Cologne, once the hottest fair on the continent, has been in decline, suffering from competition from Frieze as well as several local fairs in Berlin, Dusseldorf and Brussels. Its director for the past five years, Gérard Goodrow, was made a scapegoat and unceremoniously sacked earlier this year. But he was instantly snapped up by Phillips de Pury & Co, for whom he will now run an office in Germany. |
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