USA / ARTS: Pablo Picasso and Paul Gaugin lead the big fall Impressionist and Modern art sales in New York

Record ID: 1484032

  • Title: USA / ARTS: Pablo Picasso and Paul Gaugin lead the big fall Impressionist and Modern art sales in New York
  • Date: 12th November 2007
  • Summary: GIRLS CHANTING "I'M A SPANIARD" BOYS CHANTING "ANDRES INIESTA" (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) SOCCER SUPPORTER NACHO SAYING: "What can happen now?...what happened is..." (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) SOCCER SUPPORTER HUGO SAYING: "It is pure craziness, man. It's fantastic. It was the best day of my life, I think." (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) SOCCER SUPPORTER JAVIER SAYING: "We just left (the
  • Embargoed: 27th November 2007 13:01
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA16CVP4DMOXO1871TI07G8WP7A
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: After several years of soaring prices for both Impressionist and contemporary art, the fall auctions could signal whether recent financial market jitters will tamp down seemingly unbridled spending.
    Alternatively, records will tumble, contemporary prices will continue their meteoric rise, and auction powerhouses Sotheby's and Christie's will bask in the afterglow of results that exceed even their most optimistic expectations, as has been the case in many recent seasons.
    Officials from both auction houses are confident latter scenario will prevail.
    Both auction houses held previews of their fall Impressionist and Modern art sales on Friday (November 2) in New York.
    Guy Bennett, Christie's head of Impressionist and Modern art, said he and his clients are well aware of the recent problems that began in the mortgage markets and then spread to the other areas, including stocks, but Bennett feels confident the art world will not experience a similar letdown.
    "We look at them and our clients have the same concerns that we do, but I think that this is a very separate market and I think what is important here is we were aware of these issues three or four months ago when they first appeared, and so what we've really managed to do is put a sale together that is attractive to our clients, that is it's very diverse, very broad, and the estimates on the whole are very attractive, conservative,"
    said Bennett.
    Echoing this optimism is Sotheby's director of Impressionist and Modern art, David Norman, who cites a surge in the international makeup of the art markets.
    "Because the non-dollar buyers are increasingly gaining an advantage with the weakening of the dollar, we might find a lower percentage of Americans winning the top lots and an increase of them going to an international audience," said David Norman, Sotheby's director of Impressionist and Modern art.
    Given a relatively fixed supply that must satisfy an expanding pool of potential buyers, the auction houses' bullishness would appear to be justified.
    The top lot during the fortnight of critical fall sales is Gauguin's Tahitian scene "Te Poipoi (The Morning)", which leads Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern sale (40 million to 60 million U.S. dollars).
    Christie's Impressionist and modern sale is led by a 25 million USD Picasso portrait of one of his mistresses, Jacqueline Roque from 1955.
    Sotheby's has its own star Picasso, 1931's "La Lampe," which has remained in artist's family and has never hit the auction block. Estimated at 25 million USD to 35 million USD, it could easily go much higher.
    Together the archrivals expect to sell up to one billion USD worth of Impressionist and Modern art, and another 700 million USD on the post-war side.
    It all begins on November 6 with Christie's Impressionist auction, then Sotheby's a day later on November 7.
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