Treasure trove of art for sale in New York

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The world’s major auction houses have too much of a good thing: US$1.8 billion of trophy art that will go on the block in New York this week.

There’s such a glut of investment-grade art for sale that they’re saving some of the prized works for future auctions.

“People are really perceiving the market peak,” said Brooke Lampley, vice-chairman of Sotheby’s fine arts division. “And they don’t know how long it’s going to last.”

Collections of two late businessmen — Royal Cruise Line founder Barney Ebsworth at Christie’s and music-industry entrepreneur David Josefowitz at Sotheby’s — include masterpieces by Edward Hopper and Wassily Kandinsky. Billionaire Joe Lewis is aiming to set an auction record for a living artist with the sale of a David Hockney painting. Other major artists, including Helen Frankenthaler, Oskar Kokoschka and American modernist Marsden Hartley, are also poised for new highs.

Auction houses are embracing a more inclusive view of art history as collectors seek “greatness and value beyond the same old” constellation of Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon and Henri Matisse, Lampley said.

The season’s top two lots, both at Christie’s, are a case in point: Hopper’s 1929 Chop Suey is estimated at US$70-$100 million, and Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) could fetch more than US$80 million.

“These were not blue-chip names as recently as two years ago,” Lampley said.

Sotheby’s is highlighting a group of paintings created around the First World War, including a 1912 apocalyptic scene by Ludwig Meidner, estimated at US$12-$18 million. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s 1915 Das Soldatenbad, painted after the artist’s release from military service, is estimated at US$15-$20 million. It had been in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim, and recently was restituted to the heirs of Jewish art dealer Alfred Flectheim along with a stunning portrait of a man, Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac by Kokoschka, estimated at US$15-$20 million. The Austrian artist’s current auction record is US$4.1 million.

A 1913 Hartley canvas, created while he lived in Berlin, is a geometric puzzle in primary colours that’s estimated at US$30 million, almost five times the artist’s current auction record.

Postwar highlights for the week include Willem de Kooning’s 1954-55 Woman as Landscape, estimated at US$60-$80 million, and Jackson Pollock’s 1950 Composition with Red Strokes, which may fetch US$50-$70 million. Both will be offered today during a special evening auction of the Ebsworth collection. Another Pollock, being sold by Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro at Phillips, may fetch US$18 million. Nelson Rockefeller purchased it for US$306 in 1950, the year it was made.

Frankenthaler’s Red Square, a more-than-three-metre-wide canvas, is estmated at US$3-$5 million at Christie’s. The auction record for the postwar female artist is US$3 million, set in May. The 1959 work is being sold by Bennington College, her alma mater, to help fund scholarships for needy students. The school received the work as a gift from Frankenthaler.

Sotheby’s is offering a massive abstract painting by Gerhard Richter. The 2½-by-four-metre Abstraktes Bild is estimated at US$30 million, and has been in the same collection for the past 20 years, according to the catalogue.

The sensual Calla Lilies on Red is part of a group being sold by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum to benefit the acquisitions fund. It’s estimated at US$8-$12 million.

Abigail Asher, an art adviser in New York, said the upcoming mega-week of auctions will have something for collectors of all stripes, whether they covet Impressionist, modern, postwar or contemporary art.

“There’s a breadth of material and quality that’s really exciting,” she said.

— Bloomberg News