Art sales fall 97% at the biggest auction houses
Plus: ‘Humpty Dumpty’ falls to Phillips; virtual drinks at Masterpiece; urban art for new London project
The big-name auction houses may be making great strides online but there is a lot to make up for since the Covid-19 pandemic took its toll on live events. Sale totals worldwide fell 97 per cent at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips during May, from nearly $2.9bn in 2019 to $93m last month, according to data from Pi-eX. This is the lowest public auction total ever recorded for the month by the database (which tracks from 2007).
“The sharp fall isn’t so surprising given that all but three of May’s auctions were purely online. Historically, online sales from these auction houses have generated less than $2m on average each, compared to $50m from the live evening sales,” says Christine Bourron, chief executive of Pi-eX.
May is normally high season in the art market — Pi-eX finds that 38 live sales were cancelled or postponed during the month this year — and auction specialists hope to make up some of the slack in the traditionally quiet summer season.
Sotheby’s is the latest to reinvent the wheel and will conduct its postponed New York evening auction from London on June 29. The plan is for auctioneer Oliver Barker to field bids through the night via what he describes as a “mission control-style, zero-latency video stream”. Renderings suggest this will be a cross between a life-size Zoom meeting and a video game, which should prove entertaining. Sotheby’s has already announced consignments estimated at more than $200m to the sale.
Phillips is also full steam ahead for its postponed 20th-century and contemporary art evening auction in New York, now planned to take place live on July 2 and with as many staff and clients as the health guidelines permit by then.
Recent consignments include “Humpty Dumpty” (1921), painted by the American artist Maxfield Parrish for the cover of the Easter edition of Life magazine that year (est $400,000-$600,000). The work, a surreal vision of Humpty Dumpty taking tea on a bucolic wall, comes from the Du Pont family in Wilmington, Delaware, a branch of one of American’s wealthiest dynasties. Parrish and Pierre du Pont (1870-1954) were childhood friends and his family bought the work directly from the artist.
Elizabeth Goldberg, who joined Phillips from Sotheby’s last year to boost its American art expertise, says “America’s contribution to 20th-century painting [is perceived as starting] with Jackson Pollock and the other postwar Abstract Expressionists, which shouldn’t be the case.”
Of Parrish, she says, “People recognise his imagery without knowing it’s by him,” noting his parallels with surrealist artists in Europe, particularly René Magritte. Collectors of Parrish include the film director George Lucas, who has said that the artist inspired some of the fantastic landscapes in Star Wars.
There’s been a change of direction for London’s cross-category Masterpiece art fair, whose organisers have now decided to join the fray and go virtual.
“Everybody was piling in online but I needed to think about it to see if we could do something additive — and something that people could enjoy,” says chief executive Lucie Kitchener. As well as running the fair through the Artsy platform (June 24-July 8, with two preview days), her plans include offering private views through the Masterpiece website and Zoom. These could range from an expert talking in depth about one particular discipline to a curator’s highlights tour. “We want it to be more social; we’re encouraging people to grab a glass of wine with five of their friends,” she says.
Pre-recorded videos and live panel discussions with museums including the V&A, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hong Kong Museum of Art will also feature. The fair’s 138 exhibitors have the option to do their own video to introduce their virtual booths and there is no fee to participate. “Contemporary galleries have been a step ahead online, but some of our galleries need this support just now,” Kitchener says.
Masterpiece is majority owned by MCH Group, which also wholly owns Art Basel, one of the first fair franchises impacted by Covid-19 when its Hong Kong edition was cancelled in March. Art Basel’s flagship Swiss fair, due to run in June and then postponed to September, is still an uncertain prospect. An online version of the fair takes place in the meantime, running June 19-26.
“Nothing is stopping me,” says the gallerist Nicole Schoeni as she prepares to move from Hong Kong to London and launch project spaces in both cities before the end of this year. Plans are well under way in Clapham, south-west London, where she has invited 10 urban artists to take over a 6,000 sq ft Victorian house, ahead of its renovation into her family home and a gallery space next year.
The project has not been without its challenges during the Covid-19 crisis. “It’s particularly difficult with urban art, because you ideally want the work made on the spot,” Schoeni says. Only four of the 10 artists involved are based in the UK so while they can go into the property (one at a time), the others are having to think more creatively than usual. For example, the street artist Zoer, who is based in France, had planned to paint directly on the walls but is instead creating digital graffiti for Schoeni’s team to print and paste in the UK. Another participant, Isaac Cordal, primarily makes small sculptures, which can be shipped over from Spain — his latest miniature figures come complete with face masks for Schoeni’s show, which she hopes to open this summer.
Visitor numbers will probably be limited to just two at a time and, Schoeni notes, she may not get to see it herself, given the expected quarantine restrictions in both cities. She describes the London project as a soft launch for a gallery that she plans to open in Hong Kong’s regenerated Wong Chuk Hang area in the Autumn.
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