RUSSIA: Rival auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's display top lots for London and New York autumn sales in Moscow

Record ID: 295971

  • Title: RUSSIA: Rival auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's display top lots for London and New York autumn sales in Moscow
  • Date: 16th October 2008
  • Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (OCTOBER 15, 2008) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF CHERTKOV PALACE WHERE CHRISTIE'S SHOW TOOK PLACE CLOSE OF CHRISTIE'S SIGN MEMBERS OF MEDIA AND CHRISTIE'S REPRESENTATIVES IN EXHIBITION ROOMS PAINTING 'GIOVANNI ANTONION CANAL' BY CANALETTO CHRISTIE'S REPRESENTATIVE SHOWING CANALETTO PAINTINGS FOR SALE TO VIEWER AND TRANSLATOR DETAIL OF PAINTING 'IN THE MEADOW' BY CLA
  • Embargoed: 31st October 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVACHEKYZ3RRUWSNLUBTHM3PNQFO
  • Story Text: Lovers of expensive art still have cash to burn and will turn their multi-million dollar art pieces into investments as the financial crisis bites, global auction houses said on Tuesday (October 14).
    Works by American pop art founder Roy Lichtenstein, French impressionist Claude Monet and Russian masters Vasily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich will go on sale in New York and London this autumn at rival auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's.
    Sotheby's and Christie's estimate they will raise around 1 billion U.S.
    dollars (USD) through the sales, a large chunk of which they expect to come from Russian buyers. For the global art market, the Russian rouble is now so important that the top lots were flown into Moscow and shown at competing venues this week.
    If the art professionals are worried about the credit crunch, they were not showing it and even rival auctioneers had a unified message for collectors - art is still a good investment.

    "Art is not really the same marketplace as the stock market or the money markets. Here you are buying unique works of art of great significance and when the art market is strong, the collectors who own masterpieces, museum-quality pictures, choose to sell them, and the truth is that any collector in their lifetime may only get one opportunity to buy a masterpiece by Kandinsky, by Monet, by Bacon or Canaletto, so the pressures that we see on a daily basis, being brought to bear on the ordinary lives of people, aren't necessarily going to be reflected in the results that we see at the very top of the art market," said Jussi Pylkkanen, President of Christie's Europe.
    This view was echoed at the Sotheby's show, held in Moscow's Artists' Union, by Head of Contemporary Art at Sotheby's New York, Alex Rotter.

    "If the art is right, if this art's historically relevant, if it's also beautiful, then it has it's importance - then there is always great value to pieces that are very hard to find," said Rotter.
    Russia has been one of the hardest hit in the financial crisis, with stock market falls of 70 percent, and investors now say that even oligarchs who borrowed heavily in good times will lose out as their companies plunge deeper into debt.
    Russia's rich have been hit hard by the global financial crisis, but they can still find money to spend on art, says Lord Mark Poltimore, Deputy Chairman of Sotheby's Europe.

    "The Russians still have a lot of money, and they are still passionate about art and I think if we get the pricing right and they know that good art is a good investment but we have to be realistic, you know, it is tough times at the moment," Poltimore told Reuters TV.
    A bright oilwork by Russian avant-garde painter Kazimir Malevich, 'Suprematist Composition' painted in 1916, is the top exhibit in Sotheby's sale show -- expected to fetch around 60 million USD. If it reaches the expected price, the Malevich sale would smash the record price for any Russian piece of work.
    In a baroque powder-blue palace in the centre of Moscow, Christie's showed a tiny, brightly coloured painting by Vasily Kandinsky, 'Study for Improvisation 3', which is expected to raise up to 20 million USD. Their star lot is a self-portrait by British artist Francis Bacon, expected to fetch 60 million USD at auction.
    Rich Russians are expected to come out in force for the sales, with a special interest in works from their motherland. Russian oligarchs have made headlines bidding millions of dollars to bring cultural icons back home, in what art experts say is an attempt to re-connect to a pre-Soviet heritage.

    "Russians are particularly buying Russian art at the moment, and thanks to this, the interest in Russian art has increased throughout the world, and gradually in recent times other wealthy international buyers, gallery members and dealers have joined the trend set by Russian buyers,"
    said Mikhail Kamensky, director of Sotheby's Russian division, which opened up its Moscow branch in spring last year.
    Sotheby's showcased 'The Rag Market in Moscow' by Muscovite Vladimir Makovsky, a detailed 1880 work that stretches over two and a half metres of canvas. It is expected to sell for up to 2.8 million USD.
    Earlier this month Russian luxury goods market Mercury Group said it will take over auction house Phillips de Pury, which is based in New York and specialises in contemporary art.
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