NEW YORK (AFP) — New York's fall art auctions kick off Monday, and Impressionist and contemporary sales will be under intense scrutiny as the art world digests whether the global financial crisis will severely affect prices.
Recent sales from major London art dealers Christie's and Sotheby's have shown that the art market has been clipped by the global downturn, with several important pieces failing to sell and others going under the hammer for less than their estimated value.
"We are cautiously optimistic," David Norman, vice chairman for Sotheby's Impressionist and modern art sales, told journalists as the latest lots for sale were unveiled.
"The rich are still there," Norman said of the wealthy collectors.
Many New York-based experts from Sotheby's and Christie's shared similar reserve about whether the art market is a safe haven for investors in the midst of a global economic downturn that has rocked financial markets from New York to Tokyo.
The tone was far from the euphoria in evidence last spring in New York, where Claude Monet's "Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil" sold at auction for a then-record 41.4 million dollars for the artist, and where a Francis Bacon triptych went for an astounding 86.2 million dollars.
This fall, Christie's has "adjusted the estimates with a very conservative position, to the level of three to four years ago," said Brett Gorvy, the auction house's international director of post-war and contemporary art.
Sotheby's has yet to offer a clear explanation for the withdrawal from auction earlier this week of a Picasso Harlequin painting which had promised to be one of the November highlights and had been estimated at 30 million dollars.
Norman would only allow that "it was withdrawn by the owner for private reasons."
Asked about the impact of the financial crisis on the art world, officials at Sotheby's privately expressed their anxieties and refused to make predictions.
"We don't have a crystal ball," Norman said.
At Christie's, Gorvy was more forthcoming: "This is really going to be one of the last opportunities to find fantastic material. If we go in any period of downturn -- and I've lived through this in the Nineties -- the sales are going to be much smaller," he said.
"We are definitely affected by the markets both in the positive as well as in the negative," he added.
"There are many people who have lost fortunes, and even if they are still worth a lot of money, emotionally do they really want to spend a large amount of money on art?"
Yet many collectors maintain "an obsessive passion for art," he said, and when they see a great piece coming up for sale, "they still want to buy, even if they are in a difficult financial position."
Among the exceptional works set for bidding over the coming two weeks ending November 12, a "Suprematism" composition by Kazimir Malevich is estimated to fetch about 60 million dollars, and "Danseuse au repos" by French Impressionist Edgard Degas is expected to go for 40 million dollars, both at Sotheby's.
Christie's will offer 85 lots, among them a Picasso in pastels with surrealist accents, "Marie-Therese et sa soeur lisant," estimated at between 18 and 25 million dollars.
Among the 75 contemporary artworks, collectors will find a painting of a boxer by the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat put up for sale by Lars Ulrich, a founder of the rock band Metallica. Experts estimated it at 12 million dollars.
A self-portrait of Francis Bacon is also for sale, and is expected to bring in about 40 million dollars.
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