New York auction records help ease fears over art market

by James Hossack Fri May 9, 3:29 AM ET

NEW YORK (AFP) - Record prices for works by Claude Monet and Edvard Munch at New York's spring sales this week have helped eased fears over the effect of the faltering US economy on the international art market.

Evening sales at Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses raised a total of 512 million dollars, slightly above lower estimates ahead of the sales, which featured a more tightly edited collection than in last year's auctions.

Among the highlights were works by Pablo Picasso and Paul Cezanne, while records were set for Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, French sculptor Auguste Rodin and Spanish surrealist Joan Miro.

Monet's "Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil," an 1873 painting of a railway bridge spanning the Seine near Paris and described by Christie's as a "truly exceptional picture," sold for a record 41.4 million dollars.

"It is the quintessential early Monet. We will not see another one this good for a long while, I don't suppose, unless this one lures a few out," said Christie's honorary chairman and the evening's auctioneer, Christopher Burge.

The previous record for the artist stood at 36.5 million dollars.

Munch's "Girls on a bridge," described by Sotheby's as "one of those iconic, impactful, colorful, modern masterworks," meanwhile sold for 30.8 million dollars, again establishing a record for the artist.

And a work by French cubist Fernand Leger, "Etude pour 'La Femme en Bleu'" went to an anonymous buyer at Sotheby's for a record 39.2 million dollars.

Simon Shaw, head of impressionist and modern art at Sotheby's, described the work as the "greatest cubist painting seen at auction in decades. You'll never get another Leger like that."

Nevertheless, other works by Monet as well as works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Renoir and Matisse failed to find buyers.

There has been widespread concern ever since some disappointing sales last year that the art market could be suffering the effects of the US housing crisis and credit crunch, despite an upbeat assessment by the auction houses.

"We had fantastic results largely across the board, from the impressionist pictures... into the modern works," said Sotheby's Shaw.

"I think it shows that any attempt to draw a facile link between what's happening in the financial markets and what's happening in the art auction market is irrelevant," he said.

"There's enormous wealth. People are waiting for the right works to spend their money on."

Christie's Burge gave a similarly upbeat assessment, describing the market for good impressionist works as "alive and well," despite the auction house's takings falling just below its pre-sale low estimate of 287 million dollars.

"I think where things didn't sell it was either because the works were unusual or they were possibly overpriced, or we were going for big estimates," he told AFP.

For Emmanuel Di Donna, director of evening sales at Sotheby's, the key to the current market was offering top-quality works. "There's a real pursuit of quality," he said after Wednesday night's sale.

David Norman, chairman of Sotheby's impressionist and modern department, admitted that there had been concerns ahead of the sales.

"The whole market had a great sense of expectation and some trepidation about how these sales would perform," he told AFP. "There's been a lot of people holding their breath."

A larger than expected proportion of successful bidders from North America at the Sotheby's sale -- 67 percent -- also helped buck suggestions that US buyers were withdrawing from the market.

Asked if the worst was over, Norman said: "You know, I think it is. I don't think we're at all poised on the edge of a cliff the way we were in 1990 when the Japanese withdrew (from the art market) and the bottom fell out of it.

"There's still so much liquidity and so many buyers from everywhere."

He said the sales had displayed the "underpinnings of a really strong market that we believe is going to continue as long as we keep the estimates appealing to the consignors and choose the right property."