A nervous art market is waiting on the forthcoming auction season in New York, which begins at Christie’s on November 7, to determine the health — or otherwise — of the industry in a tricky year. Decent gallery sales were reported from the recent Frieze and Paris+ par Art Basel fairs, but the anecdotal evidence is that buying in general was more muted this year, particularly above the $100,000 level. The London auctions this month also fell short, while numbers from evening sales in New York in May were down 18 per cent on last year, according to ArtTactic.
“The London-Paris double header of fairs and auctions was quite wearing, and everyone had an eye on the New York auction highlights, which were prominently displayed,” says Hugo Nathan, founding partner of art advisory business Beaumont Nathan. “The art market relies on May and November. Right now there are buyers, despite all the trouble in the world, but they are not swallowing prices as they were.”
Mega-offerings in New York next month include the $400mn-plus Emily Fisher Laudau collection at Sotheby’s — with a 1932 Picasso painting of Marie-Thérèse Walter estimated at $120mn — and, at Christie’s, a large Monet water lily painting from c1917-19 estimated at $65mn, plus Arshile Gorky’s “Charred Beloved I” (1946), offered by the media magnate David Geffen for $20mn.
Phillips hosts its first auction dedicated to ceramics made by Lucie Rie and her colleague and friend Hans Coper in London on November 1. The 106 items — including a couple of pieces on which Rie and Coper collaborated — come from two collections. The majority are from Coper’s late wife, the photographer Jane Coper, whose estate includes several items bequeathed by Rie, with the remainder from the dedicated collector and ceramics expert Cyril Frankel, a film and TV director who died in 2017. Combined, the works have an estimate of £3mn-£4.2mn.
“It was through Frankel really that Rie and Coper were understood to be less potters and more part of the British modern art movement,” says Sofia Sayn-Wittgenstein, head of the design department at Phillips in London. “They created a whole new language for ceramicists.”
Rie and Coper, both Jewish and from Austria and Germany, respectively, found refuge from the Nazis in London in the 1930s. They began working together in 1946, when the younger Coper joined Rie’s workshop, initially founded to make glazed ceramic buttons for fashion houses. The skilful Rie trained Coper and the pair, who remained friends all their lives, gradually established their own styles — Rie’s more Romanesque and materials-based, Coper’s more Cycladic and focused on form — in a shared studio. Today, Coper’s works command the higher prices: his auction record stands at the equivalent of $878,000; hers at $340,200. This is partly, Sayn-Wittgenstein says, “because Lucie was a bit more laissez-faire about imperfections. Hans would destroy work that he didn’t think was right.”
Among the items on offer next week is Rie’s pink, turquoise and beige spiralling clay “Vase with flaring lip” (1979, est £30,000-£50,000), used in a 1987 set of postage stamps to mark the centenary of the birth of the ceramicist Bernard Leach. Also on offer is a porcelain bowl by Rie with the inscription “For Hans Coper Christmas 1949. From his boss Lucie Rie. All debts are cancelled” (£30,000-£40,000). Among Coper’s work is a large stoneware dish with a carved abstract bird design (c1955, est £80,000-£120,000). Estimates range from £1,000 to £240,000.
This weekend marks the opening of the second edition of Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK), a fair of 64 exhibitors in which Japanese galleries share booths with overseas counterparts (October 28-30, ICC Kyoto). This year’s pairings include Tokyo’s Misako & Rosen with New York’s 47 Canal; Standing Pine (Nagoya) with Chi-Wen Gallery (Taipei); and SCAI The Bathhouse (Tokyo) with Axel Vervoordt (Antwerp).
As last year, fair organisers confirm that they have been granted bonded status, enabling overseas visitors to save on advance customs taxes. “It is exciting to see the Japanese government has a long-term vision to improve the value of art socially, academically and economically,” says the fair’s programme director, Yukako Yamashita. Her highlights include a solo showing of Olafur Eliasson, inspired by Zen gardens (neugerriemschneider), part of a separate section dedicated to art with connections to Kyoto.
The latest Art Basel & UBS report found that Japan’s galleries witnessed healthy increases in sales last year, up 28 per cent, above the aggregate from Asia (26 per cent). Market activity in Japan continues after ACK with Art Week Tokyo, a citywide collaborative effort that groups 39 galleries and 11 institutions, supported by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs and in collaboration with Art Basel. Both events coincide with the Tokyo Biennale (until November 5) and the Saitama Triennale (until December 10).
Art-fair season is truly in full swing and the pre-pandemic issue of too many fairs on the circuit is hard to avoid. This weekend is the 30th in-person edition of New York’s IFPDA print fair (26-29 October), while next week marks the 30th edition of Turin’s Artissima fair for contemporary art (November 3-5). Other fairs around the world include Art X Lagos (November 2-5) and the ADAA’s 35th The Art Show in New York (November 2-5).
Jenny Gibbs, executive director of the IFPDA fair, concedes that “there are definitely too many fairs in the fall” and has moved its dates for next year, when the IFPDA will run February 15-18. Having a niche offering helps in a crowded field, she says: “We are a must-attend event for prints and editions curators and collectors around the world.”
The 90-plus exhibitors this year bring works that range from Old Masters, such as Dürer and Rembrandt at David Tunick, Inc (booth prices up to $1mn), to the brand-new — Hauser & Wirth brings a 60-layer screen print by Mark Bradford, “Rona” (2023, edition of 25, $185,000).
And finally . . . Christie’s star auctioneer and global president, Jussi Pylkkänen, has announced he is leaving the business after 38 years to turn his skills to independent art advisory. The Finnish-born specialist, who turned 60 this year, will conduct his last auction in London on December 7.
Pylkkänen’s rostrum highlights include selling Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” (c1500) for $450.3mn in 2017, still by far the most expensive work ever at auction. Art-market regulars will also long remember some of Pylkkänen’s persuasive patter, such as “Are we all done?”; “You’ve come a long way”; and “It’s a beautiful thing.” The salerooms won’t be the same without him.
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