Sotheby’s failed to sell a third of the lots at its Impressionist and modern art auction last night in New York, the latest sign that worldwide financial distress is undermining demand for trophy paintings and sculpture.
Just 64 percent of the 70 lots found buyers, the lowest rate for an Impressionist evening sale at Sotheby’s since May 2001. The $223.8 million tally was a third below the $338 million low estimate. Christie’s International holds its Impressionist and modern art sales tomorrow and Thursday nights.
“The market just corrected,’’ said John Good, a director at Gagosian Gallery, as he and about 800 others departed Sotheby’s cavernous white-walled salesroom.
Among the bright spots, Kazimir Malevich’s geometric 1916 “Suprematist Composition’’ sold for a record $60 million to a lone bidder. Henry Kravis’s elegant Edgar Degas ballerina pastel made $37 million, also an auction record for the artist.
Auctioneer Tobias Meyer cited a “changed financial environment’’ for what he referred to as a “new market’’ for art. Following a year in which credit markets froze and stocks plunged worldwide, the mood was tense and somber as dealers chomped chewing gum, nibbled nail beds and punched keys on Blackberry devices.
“It wasn’t terrible,’’ dealer Asher Edelman said. “But it was not a good sale.’’ The rarest works still commanded hefty prices, and run-of- the-mill offerings by Pissarro, Giacometti, Cezanne, Chagall and Kandinsky didn’t sell.
The casualties were large and small. Amedeo Modigliani’s jowly mustached “Homme Assis,’’ estimated at over $18 million, didn’t elicit a bid; nor did Impressionist Claude Monet’s lavender-flecked 1893 canvas of a fog-enveloped Rouen cathedral, projected to fetch more than $16 million. The painting had sold for $1.2 million in 1986 at Sotheby’s in London.
Sotheby’s began assembling its sale in the summer, before the recent market rout, signing up artworks at predicted prices pegged to the strong spring season. In recent weeks, auction-house executives have tried to persuade sellers to adjust expectations, lowering “reserves,’’ the secret minimum bid below which a work won’t sell. Rival Christie’s International holds its evening sales tomorrow and Thursday, with a break for election night. That gives specialists more time to haggle with sellers about reserves. Christie’s two-night sale may tally up to $560.8 million.
Next week’s evening auctions feature contemporary art, with two-week totals for the two major houses projected at as high as $1.9 billion, a figure that tonight’s sale might put in jeopardy. Recent sales in London and Hong Kong also were disappointing.
Last night’s top lot, the Malevich, showed that iconic works still command high prices. “Suprematist Composition” features floating black, yellow, orange and green rectangles painted against a crisp-white background.
