Movement

2010: the best results from Old Masters

The price index for Old Masters reached its peak of the decade in October 2008. Thus, like a number of other art segments, it benefited from the auction room euphoria that developed between 2004 and 2008 and then suffered from the meltdown as the economic crisis chased confidence out of the market. However, since the end of 2009 the major works withheld from auctions when the market was weak have started to return.

Street Art is à la mode

Born on the streets of New York in the 1960s and incarnating rebelliousness and non-conformity, tags, graffiti and stencils have found their way into galleries, auction rooms and collections. Today, street art is clearly fashionable having earned its stars in numerous exhibitions at venerable institutions like the Tate Modern in London (Street art, 23 May - 25 August 2008) and the Grand Palais of Paris (Tag, 27 March - 26 April 2009).

Latin American art

In 2009, Sotheby’s celebrated its 30th year of Latin American art sales. Its first sale of Latin American art took place in New York on 17 October 1979. Sotheby’s recent sales on 18 and 19 November 2009 generated a total of $13.8m for (with 68% of lots sold) vs. $7.,5m from its previous Latam sales on 27 and 28 May 2009.

Indian contemporary art : the podium

In the 1990s there was virtually no secondary art market in India. Between 2000 and 2008, the price index of Contemporary Art multiplied by seven! While Anish KAPOOR and Subodh GUPTA are among the world’s fifteen top-selling Contemporary artists with auction revenues of €11.2m and €10.7m respectively, the third top-selling Indian artist, TV SANTOSH , had a revenue total only one tenth of his peers’ (€1.2m).

German Expressionism - aggression with a brush

The price index for German expressionist masters has been particularly dynamic over the past 2 years. Underpinning this price progression: a rarefaction of the offer; some exceptional works coming to market and plenty of recent exhibitions. For example, Emil Nolde is currently being honoured with a retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris – until 19 January 2009.

Richard Avedon – The eye without lashes

He was one of the most sought-after 20th century photographers: he worked for Harper’s Bazaar for twenty years, spent twenty-five designing cover pages for Vogue, and twelve for The New Yorker and captured the reality of events and people of his time without a trace of sentimentality. From the glamorous world of fashion to the austerity of the struggling, lower middle classes of the American West, he devoted his talent to capturing flashes of truth.
He was a photographer who embodied renunciation, working from No, replacing colour with black and white and sharpening the focus on his models with neutral backgrounds.

The New York School

The European artists who sought refuge in New York during the Second World War helped stoke up a simmering US art scene. A resurgence in US painting was in the making. A resurgence that would be abstract and manifest in two key movements: Action painting, consisting of gestural painting that emphasised the physical act of painting, and Color Field painting, characterised by large, flat areas of vibrant colour conducive to meditation.

The New York School

After World War II, American painting was revived by a number of young artists. Influenced by surrealism, they eschewed reality and began a free style of painting that developed into two basic trends: "Action painting" and "Colorfield painting".

THE ART SCENE IN NICE

I am alive, I am in Nice.
Ben 1993

If you were to look for the geographical heart of French art, you would naturally turn to Paris, the country's artistic capital. But the south of France, particularly the area around Nice, has also been a fertile cradle of artistic creation. Masters such as Pablo PICASSO , Henri MATISSE , Fernand LÉGER and Joan MIRO were all seduced by the côte d’Azur and left major works in the region. Following in their footsteps came Yves KLEIN , Fernandez ARMAN , Martial RAYSSE , then BEN , Bernar VENET , CÉSAR , Claude VIALLAT , Noël DOLLA and others spawning the great movements of French contemporary art : Fluxus, Supports/Surfaces, and the New Realism.

MINIMALISM

Strong demand on the US market has pushed prices for the centre-pieces of 1960s Minimal Art to record highs.

The most buoyant art movements of 2005

Artprice has established a ranking of art movements based on price progressions in 2005.

Propelled by a major exhibition since 5 October at the Pompidou Centre, Dada takes the lead with a 137% rise in its price index since the beginning of the year.
However, the Dadism movement lasted only eight years from 1916 to 1924 and supply remains very limited. Not a single work by Duchamp, Sophie TAEUBER-ARP or Hans ARP produced during this short period appeared at auction in 2005.

Record for Russian Art Sales

On 30 November and 1 December 2004, Sotheby’s and Christie’s each generated revenues of GBP 9.3 million at their prestigious Russian Art Sales. This year, the auction houses reached a new record with turnover of GBP 22 million for Christie's on 30 November and GBP 22.2 million for Sotheby’s the following day. Even with high bought-in rates (32% and 28% respectively), the two houses well exceeded their most optimistic forecasts. Prior to its Russian Sale, Sotheby’s only hoped to achieve GBP 12-16 million in turnover.

Old Master paintings

December is usually a plentiful month for Old Master paintings. 3000 Old Masters were offered for sale in the three weeks before Christmas of last year. Prices on this segment have risen 26% over the last twelve months, but only 36% over the last ten years. This compares with an 85% increase of the Artprice Global Index (all periods combined) since November 1995 (on the basis of auction sales in euros), implying that Old Masters has been one of the least speculative segments in the art market. On the positive side, the segment has proved ideal for risk averse collectors. With a reduced volume of sales (5.7% of Fine Art auctions), prices are reasonably well protected.

Photography market

The recent burst of price inflation in the photography segment began back in 1999 with the Jammes sale of old photographs and later spread to contemporary clichés. Today the entire "modern photography" market is caught up in the movement. In New York, one record is followed by another.

French neo-classical artists

Various exhibitions are currently paying homage to Girodet and his master, Jacques-Louis David, the leading light in the French neo-classical art movement. These exhibitions are expected to drive up prices for neo-classical artworks, which are already rising due to the huge shortage of supply.

Cezanne and Pissarro at the MoMA

The MoMA (New York) is presenting a major impressionist exhibition running until 12 September 2005, entitled “Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne and Pissarro 1865–1885” in which a selection of 85 works traces the career of these two Impressionist masters. Cézanne and Pissarro first met in 1861 and subsequently worked regularly together in Pontoise and Auvers sur Oise.

Contemporary Art Auction in Paris focused on New Realists

On 19 April, the auction house Cornette de Saint Cyr well be the venue for a major auction of contemporary art dedicated to the New Realists and entitled "The 'New Realists', Contemporary Art, Banque Worms Collection". This is not the first time.

The Neo-Impressionist market

From 15 March to 10 July 2005, the Musée d'Orsay is showing 120 neo-impressionist paintings as part of its major exhibition entitled "Neo-Impressionism: from Seurat to Paul Klee". The exhibition begins with works by Georges Seurat, the movement's founder, and rounds off with works by artists who were influenced by the movement, such as Matisse, Derain, Kandinsky and Maurice de Vlaminck.

Structural changes in the photography market

Since the boom in the photography market in 1999, the number of photographs sold at auction has never been as low as it was in 2004. According to Artprice data, 7,000 photographs went under the hammer last year compared with nearly 9,200 in 2000. Yet, the turnover generated from these sales (USD 70 million) has never been so high, representing a 31% increase on 2003.

Contemporary photography: +35% in 2004

In the mid-1990s, paintings were the only medium in the art market that investors considered of any speculative interest. But recently, with growing demand and a wave of artistic renewal, other creative formats have proved as, or more, lucrative than paintings. The photography market has been expanding rapidly for the past five years and is today one of the art world’s fastest-growth segments.