HAS SPRING SPRUNG THIS YEAR FOR THE ART MARKET?
HAS SPRING SPRUNG THIS YEAR FOR THE ART MARKET ?
Nazli Kok Art Reports
Marlene Dumas, (B.1953), Miss January, (detail)
Spring auctions in New York kicked off this week, with lots of items up for grabs.
The spring art sales in New York have always served as an indicator of the state of the art market. Despite ongoing economic uncertainty, the questions remains as :
- Whether collectors will be willing to purchase ?
- Should auction houses put the estimated sale prices more carefully and without inflating them?
- The role of guaranteed sales and third parties will be called into question in the near future. It is important to consider how this will affect the operations of auction houses, consignors and buyers in the art market.
- Could the significant rise in the number of works by female artists suggests that a new type of buyer, particularly female collectors, is entering the art market?
Economic uncertainty is causing art collectors to exercise significant caution, a trend that will persist until the next American elections and until the global threat of world war becomes clearer. All market participants must therefore define their future positions accordingly.
The new era is likely to be characterised by a dynamic created by cautious and hesitant buyers, anxious sellers, and an exciting new momentum driven by women artists and collectors. One-to-one relationships, galleries, and art fairs will play a significant role in this process.
In any case, all the results of the 2025 New York Spring Art Sales mark the beginning of a new era for the art market. This is an exciting and thrilling time for dealers, collectors and enthusiasts alike.
Giacometti's masterpiece failed to find a buyer!
A magnificient bronze bust by Alberto Giacometti, the masterpiece attributed to the artist's brother Diego, "Grande tête mince", failed to find a buyer at Sotheby's modern evening auction, despite carrying a price tag of 70 M Dollars.
"Sales are often managed and orchestrated but this was an organic auction moment", Sotheby's CEO Charles Stewart told to the Wall Street Journal. "But we stand by the importance of the work".
Works by Giacometti have long been seen as the most blue-chip ( considered to be a safe investment becauce it is well-established and has performed well in the past ) of trophy pieces for collectors, regularly selling for eight figures or more.
This rare Giacometti masterpiece comes from the Maeght family of Saint-Paul de Vence France. It belonged to the late American real estate developer, Sheldon Solow, and is being sold to benefit charity. Due to its repainted surface, this work belongs to an edition of six.
Women rescued the spring auction!
The rise of women artists continues unstoppably.
"It's a tough market, we are not expecting fireworks," Christie's chairperson Guillaume Cerutti told to The Art Newspaper. He was probably spooked by the flopped Giacometti bust.
The auction was rescued by women!
Dorothea Tanning and Remedios Varo achieved the highest prices at the auction, and three of the four records set during the sale were for female artists.
Marlene Dumas, (B.1953), Miss January, Christie's 21th Century Evening Sales, Estimated Price; 12M-18M Dollars. Price Realised; 13.6M Dollars. This is a record-breaking sale for a living female artist.
Marlene Dumas's painting "Miss January" made art market history, it is now the most expensive work by any living female artist sold at auction.
"Miss January", is an artwork that has a nude blonde woman wearing just one pink sock, reflects Dumas's powerful command of figuration and emotional intensity. Measuring 280 cm height depicts a beauty queen standing confidentaly. It was sold from the collection of the Miami mega collectors, Mera and Don Rubell, who acquired the painting from the Galerie Paul Andriesse in Amsterdam more than 20 years ago.
“Through its monumental scale and singular subject matter, "Miss January " is truly the magnum opus of Marlene Dumas,” said Sara Friedlander, deputy chairman of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s, in the May 2 statement.
“In this painting, Dumas triumphantly demonstrates a formal mastery of the woman’s body while simultaneously freeing it from a tradition of subjection, upending normalized concepts of the female nude through the lens of a male-centric history,”
Piet Mondrian, (1872-1944) , Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and... Estimate on request. Price realised; 47,5 M Dollars.
Against all odds!
Insecure economic conditions are shaking the world.
Amid world war alarms and fluctuating economic indicators, which are affected by the President's irresponsible declarations, buyers are encouraged to keep their money in safe deposit boxes. These factors force the stock market to restructure every morning, unable to predict what will happen next. However, despite all this, rare Mondrian sells for 43.6M Dollars!
Titled Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue, the painting was part of a group of works for sale that had been drawn from the collection of Louise Riggio and her late husband, Leonard Riggio, founder of bookseller Barnes & Noble, and had hung in the grand entryway of the couple’s Park Avenue apartment.
It is a good news for the art market, which means that the hope is kept alive that rare artworks will always attract buyers, but not at any price!
Nazli Kok Art Reports
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