Alberto Giacometti sales show the opaque world of high-end auctions
MCH Group reaches agreement; England locks galleries down again; Ed Sheeran painting up for grabs
Three sculptures by Alberto Giacometti that were sold last week summarise the increasingly complicated and opaque world of high-end auctions. All three lifetime sculptures — “Femme de Venise IV” (cast 1957), “Femme Leoni” (cast 1958) and “Grande Femme I” (1960) — were sold via Sotheby’s on October 27 and 28, but through different channels.
Most straightforward — albeit guaranteed to sell to an unnamed
third-party at an undisclosed price — was “Femme Leoni”, which went within estimate for $22.6m ($25.9m with fees) at a live-streamed sale. “Femme de Venise IV” had been due on the block just before, estimated at $14m-$18m, but was withdrawn because it sold privately just before the public auction — we have no idea why or for how much.
Also unknown is the price of “Grande Femme I”, which Sotheby’s offered
via a confidential, sealed-bid process, familiar to the charity-auction crowd but not normal practice at a leading art auction house. We were told that
the minimum starting bid for this 9ft sculpture was $90m and have
since had its sale confirmed, with no other information.
“The auction business had changed such a lot already, and then again as
a result of Covid,” says New York-based gallerist David Nash, who
worked at Sotheby’s between 1961 and 1996, latterly as its global head
of Impressionist and Modern art. The forced online experience has accentuated “a number of peculiar obscurities”, Nash says, including catalogues no longer being printed — and so withdrawn lots “simply disappear”. There is also no real sense of where the bids are coming from, as viewers are now reliant on the auction house’s cameras and an auctioneer’s persuasive patter. “If, as they say, a million people are now watching, there should be higher standards of transparency,” says Nash.
Art Basel’s owner MCH Group has reached an agreement with its major shareholders to pave the way towards an investment by James Murdoch, through his company Lupa Systems. Under the revised terms, an additional SFr30m ($32.7m) will be raised through a first-tranche share issue, while still preserving shareholders’ proportional ownerships. In the next share issue — valued at SFr74.5m ($81m) — shareholders will have the option to sell to Lupa Systems and the Canton of Basel-Stadt, which has committed to maintain MCH’s institutional shareholding at 33.3 per cent. In return, the investors Erhard Lee and LLB Swiss Investment, who together own about 10 per cent of MCH Group, will drop their legal objections to Murdoch’s investment vehicle owning up to 49 per cent of the business without a public takeover bid.
If shareholders approve the settlement at an extraordinary general meeting, then MCH will have overcome a major hurdle to securing a necessary injection of cash. But, as many countries go into a second lockdown, it could yet prove just a small step in a troubling bigger picture for the exhibitions and events group.
Having reopened from June 15, and with a brief flurry of autumnal activity, England’s commercial galleries had to close again this week, as the country entered a second lockdown. Rakeb Sile, who opened the first overseas branch of Addis Fine Art in London’s Cromwell Place at the end of October, says she had at least a brief opportunity to exhibit Ethiopian Modernist painter Tadesse Mesfin in Europe for the first time. The pandemic, she says, has “taught us all to embrace change and uncertainty with a positive mindset”.
Iwan Wirth, president of Hauser & Wirth, also finds that there are “some fundamental differences” this time. “We anticipated this lockdown and are already digitally resilient,” he says, although he appreciates that the global gallery is fortunate to have options elsewhere, including last week’s openings of exhibitions by George Condo and Jack Whitten in New York (until January 23). However, Wirth says, “Unfortunately, the museums are impacted, and they play a vital role, so this situation is a reminder that we are all part of the same ecosystem.”
Tefaf Online’s strategy of asking its 280 galleries each to show just one work has paid off handsomely for some. Di Donna Galleries sold its “Interior with Woman Standing” (1913), a trademark light-filled painting by the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi, for about $5m. The artwork was bought for $700,000 at Sotheby’s in 2005, since when the Danish artist’s work has been increasingly appreciated, by museums as well as private buyers.
“Focusing on just one work meant we could put a lot of effort into it, which was a good trigger for this sale,” says gallery founder Emmanuel Di Donna. He was among several exhibitors who included a video on their virtual booth — while the antiquities specialist ArtAncient went one further with a corresponding immersive Virtual Reality experience of its Hellenistic bust of Hercules (1st century AD). Their efforts were rewarded when the demigod sculpture — also priced in seven figures — sold to a tech entrepreneur, according to gallery founder Costas Paraskevaides.
Bids are already coming in for the “Ed Sheeran: Made in Suffolk Legacy Auction” to raise money for GeeWizz and Zest, charities that support disabled and incurable children and young adults in East Anglia, where
the English musician grew up. Memorabilia donated by Sheeran and his parents includes the handwritten lyrics for his 2017 hit song “Perfect” (bid at £20,500 at time of writing), a signed and framed ticket and handbill to his first public gig, organised in 2005 when Sheeran was only 14 and tickets cost a mere £3 each (current bid £1,220). There is even Sheeran’s childhood set of Lego (£370).
The 200-plus items also include donations from other celebrities (Shane Warne’s signed Australia floppy white cricket hat, anyone?) and conclude with a painting by Sheeran, “Dab 2” (2020), that the singer describes as “kind of Jackson Pollocky”, while his father John Sheeran says: “It’s like a visual equivalent of one of his upbeat songs.” Bidding for the painting stood at £7,500 by November 4 — which meets its reserve, according to the online catalogue. The auction runs at the-saleroom.com until November 8.