The Art Of The Possible

Sotheby's (BID) 10.57 NYSE
The spring thaw may have come a little to the art market, but the seasons are clearly changing.

A sale of contemporary and postwar art by Sotheby’s generated a fairly solid result on Tuesday. The sale's $47 million total including commission fell just shy of its low pre-sale estimate of $52 million, with 81 percent of the 48 lots on offer finding buyers.

Sotheby's officials said they were pleased by the result, despite the sale's having come in at less than half the take just six months ago.

"The contemporary art market is alive and well" and "has responded to the recalibration," said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's worldwide head of contemporary art, and the auctioneer.

Meanwhile, impressionist and modern art sold well at Christie's last week at an auction that met expectations and provided a measure of relief to a tense art market battered by the global financial crisis.

That relief was palpable when applause broke out in Christie's salesroom after the hammer fell on the final lot of the sale, which took in nearly $103 million, safely above the low pre-sale estimate of $88 million.

If you're a collector this is good news. But if you're an investor not so much. None of the Fast Money traders are bullish on Sotheby’s stock.
JEFF MACKE, GUY ADAMI, KAREN FINERMAN, PETE NAJARIAN, TIM SEYMOUR, "FAST MONEY"
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| 14 May 2009 | 06:06 PM ET

Russia Art Market Shaken as $3 Million Work Joins List of Fakes

May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Russian art experts have listed as a fake a painting that Christie’s International sold as a $3 million work by Boris Kustodiev.

The picture is on the latest installment of a list of 900 works identified as fraudulent by a Russian government culture agency. The 100 new additions include three allegedly by Russian masters sold by Christie’s and rival Sotheby’s over the past decade. Christie’s said it had returned money for a second work. Sotheby’s said it had heard nothing from the buyer of the third.

For the past 18 months, Russia’s art market has faced its worst crisis of confidence in the post-Soviet era as five volumes of “The Catalog of Fraudulent Art Works” were published, said dealers. Some experts say that fakes now comprise the majority of artworks they are asked to evaluate.

“Every month I’m asked to look at 10 paintings and nine are fakes,” said London-based Russian art dealer James Butterwick. “Many Russian collectors buy without asking competent experts. If a work is credible then it has a provenance that can be easily checked out.”

Prices have also tumbled as the financial crisis cuts collectors’ appetite for art. Combined sales at Russian art auctions in New York at Sotheby’s and Christie’s in April were about 40 percent of the volume sold in 2008.

Rosokhran-Kultura, the government’s cultural watchdog, released the latest issue of the fakes catalog last month. It contained the most expensive item sold at Christie’s November 2005 auction of Russian paintings in London. It was listed as “Odalisque,” painted in 1919 by Kustodiev.

“There’s no doubt ‘Odalisque’ is a fake, and that’s why we included it,” said the catalogue’s co-author Vladimir Roschin.

Nude Woman

Roschin didn’t identify the current owner of the 14-inch- by-18.5-inch painting which features a nude woman reclining in bed. The painting is signed in Cyrillic, “B. Kustodiev, 1919.” It had an estimate of 180,000 pounds to 220,000 pounds, and sold for 1.69 million pounds ($2.93 million at the time).

“I have expert conclusions saying it’s a fake from the leading authorities: the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the State Grabar Art Scientific Restoration Centre, and a private expert, Vladimir Petrov,” said Roschin.

The Christie’s catalog for the sale says “Odalisque” “appears to have been based on a charcoal drawing, ‘Reclining Nude,’ dated 1915.” It also said the painting came from the collection of Leo Maskovskii, a Russian refugee who bought art while living in the 1920s in the Baltic countries.

Five Years

Christie’s gives a five-year authenticity guarantee on works it sells. Within that time, if the buyer presents the conclusions of two experts acceptable to the buyer and Christie’s, then the auction house is willing to annul the sale.

“We are aware of the reports of the Grabar Art Scientific Restoration Centre and Vladimir Petrov prepared for the Buyer,” Christie’s said in an e-mailed statement. “We wish to conduct our own investigation but, to date, we have been denied access to the painting. Once we have the opportunity to do so, we will carefully review all the evidence that is available and reach an objective conclusion.”

Many of the works listed in the fakes catalog are 19th- century Western European paintings doctored by criminals to look like 19th-century Russian artworks. Over the past decade, the latter have been fetching much higher prices as Russian collectors snap up items from their national heritage.

The frauds in these volumes were compiled by Vladimir Petrov, who admitted in 2005 to having inadvertently authenticated 20 fraudulent paintings. He called on his colleagues to admit their mistakes.

European Trends

Such errors are possible because many Russian realist painters followed European trends, said Roschin. They used the same techniques, subject matter, and sometimes had the same teachers.

The Confederation of Art and Antique Dealers, a Moscow- based association, says the catalog and its sponsors are “destabilizing the market” and “destroying consumer confidence.”

The latest catalog also includes “Winter Light in the Evergreen Forest,” attributed to the Russian landscape painter Andrej Schilder, which sold at Christie’s in July 2000. Christie’s said it has already settled this matter.

“Shortly after the sale, concerns about its authenticity were raised,” Christie’s said in an e-mailed statement. “The matter was resolved on 30 May 2001 with a cancellation of the sale.”

The new catalog also lists an artwork sold by Sotheby’s in May 2002, “Summer Fishing in a Forest Lake,” allegedly by the Russian painter Ilya Ostroukhov.

“Sotheby’s is not aware of any issue raised about the attribution of this work, either at the time of the auction in 2002 or since,” the auction house said in a statement.

Butterwick, the London art dealer, feels the auction houses will be able to retain the confidence of Russian collectors.

“The one thing the auction houses have going for them is a buyer can return an artwork if it’s found to be a fake,” he said.

John Varoli in Moscow at jvaroli@gmail.com.

Picassos Sell at Christie’s Auction, After Faltering at Sotheby’s

By CAROL VOGEL
Two Picassos painted late in the artist’s career and a Giacometti bronze brought solid prices at Christie’s on Wednesday night in what was a surprising reversal of tastes and trends.

Where Sotheby’s had failed to sell its top Picasso and Giacometti at its Impressionist and modern art auction on Tuesday night, just 24 hours later Christie’s received bids from around the world.

A day can make all the difference in the life of auctions. Buyers appeared afraid to shop on Tuesday night, unsure of whether there was a market. But by Wednesday evening, fears of conspicuous consumption had apparently evaporated, with multiple bidders for most of the works. And Christie’s experts had the benefit of adjusting their pricing in the wake of Sotheby’s results.

“I was surprised to see people spending money,” said Mark Fisch, a Manhattan real estate developer and collector who was sitting in the second row at Christie’s. In this economy, he added, he thought bidding would have been more tentative.



The evening brought $102.7 million, in the middle of Christie’s estimate of $87.6 million to $125.2 million, with 10 of the 48 works failing to sell. By comparison, Sotheby’s total on Tuesday night was $61.3 million.

Riding the current craze for late Picassos, Christie’s had put a 1968 painting by him on the cover of its auction catalog. The work, “Musketeer With a Pipe,” was being sold by Jerome Fisher, a founder of the footwear company Nine West and a victim of the Bernard L. Madoff swindle. The brightly colored canvas was expected to fetch $12 million to $18 million. Four bidders sought the painting, which went to Nemo Vedovi, a Brussels dealer, for $14.6 million.

On Tuesday night, Sotheby’s tried to sell its star Picasso — a 1938 portrait of the artist’s daughter Maya — that was also being sold by a Madoff victim, William Achenbaum, who runs the Gansevoort Hotel Group. It was a more expensive work, estimated at $16 million to $24 million, and it went unsold.

On Wednesday, the artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel was also selling a late Picasso, “Woman Wearing a Hat” (1971). It was expected to bring $8 million to $12 million, but David Nahmad, a New York dealer, snapped it up for what seemed like a bargain — $7.7 million.

(Final prices include the commission to Christie’s: 25 percent of the first $50,000, 20 percent of the next $50,000 to $1 million, and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)

In recent seasons, sculpture has been a sure bet. But in these precarious times nothing is certain: Sotheby’s failed to sell its pricey Giacometti sculpture of a cat. At Christie’s on Wednesday, another Giacometti, “Bust of Diego (Stele III),” was offered. The work, conceived between 1957 and 1958 and cast in 1958, portrays the head of the artist’s brother perched on a tall plinth. It was expected to fetch $4.5 million to $6.5 million, but ended up selling to a telephone bidder who fought off three contenders and paid $7.6 million.

Sotheby’s sold a group of paintings by Tamara de Lempicka on Tuesday night with varying results. Christie’s had two on Wednesday night as well, including “Portrait of Madame M.,” a classic Art Deco canvas from 1932 that depicts the wife of a lawyer. It sold to a telephone bidder for $5.4 million, or $6.1 million including Christie’s fees. The final price, although just around its low estimate, was a record for the artist.

Pretty Impressionist paintings that came with pristine provenances and reasonable prices were enthusiastically sought all week. On Wednesday night, Christie’s had Pissarro’s “Picking Apples,” an 1881 canvas depicting four peasant women in a half-shaded orchard, which was being sold by the family of Evelyn Annenberg Jaffe Hall, a New York arts patron who died four years ago. Six bidders went for the painting, and it finally sold to a telephone bidder for $3.3 million, well above its $1.8 million high estimate.

Although Christie’s declined to name names, officials there said 42 percent of the buyers were from the United States and 44.7 percent were European, a group that includes Russians.

Modern Masters Suffer at Auction

By CAROL VOGEL
Picasso and Giacometti were magical names a year ago, but at Sotheby’s on Tuesday night, works by these artists went unsold. That included a 1938 Picasso portrait that decorated the cover of the sale’s catalog and was being sold by a victim of Bernard L. Madoff, hoping to raise cash.

What did tempt the packed salesroom were well-priced, pretty Impressionist images from a celebrated New York collection that had been lent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for years.

The sale kicked off a spring auction season that was far diminished from years past both in number of works and value. On Tuesday, Sotheby’s cobbled together a sale with just 36 works, estimated to bring at least $81.5 million. They actually brought far less: $61.3 million.

And that sum was modest compared with six months ago, when 45 lots totaled $223.8 million.

(Final prices include the commission paid to Sotheby’s: 25 percent of the first $50,000; 20 percent of the next $50,000 to $1 million; and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)

This spring had been Picasso’s season. Besides an exhibition of his late works at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, which has drawn thousands of visitors since it opened in March, Sotheby’s and Christie’s each put a painting by Picasso on the cover of their Impressionist and modern art sale catalogs, and both sellers were said to be Madoff victims.

At Sotheby’s, William Achenbaum, who runs the Gansevoort Hotel Group and who lost money with Mr. Madoff, was said to be the seller of “The Artist’s Two-and-a-Half-Year-Old Daughter With a Boat,” a 1938 Picasso canvas depicting his daughter Maya holding a toy boat. (The Madoff effect will be felt at Christie’s on Wednesday night, when another Picasso, also on the cover of the sale catalog, is offered by another Madoff victim, Jerome Fisher, a founder of the footwear company Nine West.)



The Sotheby’s painting was expected to bring $16 million to $24 million. One bidder tried to get it cheap but couldn’t get it cheap enough, and the work went unsold. That it was one of the biggest flops of the night was not a surprise. The painting had been offered around privately before the auction, and afterward dealers said it was overpriced.

The other big-ticket item — and another casualty of the evening — was “The Cat,” a bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti. Made in 1951 and cast in 1959 in an edition of eight, it was expected to bring $16 million to $24 million, but aside from two bottom feeders, nobody wanted to take the cat home. As with the Picasso, the auction house had tried unsuccessfully to sell the sculpture privately for a higher price than the estimate earlier this year.

But the evening was not without a few high points. Mondrian’s “Composition in Black and White, With Double Lines,” a 1934 canvas, was estimated at $3 million to $5 million. It brought the highest price of the evening, selling to an unidentified bidder sitting in the back of the salesroom for $9.2 million.

Before the auction, dealers expressed concerns about the condition of the composition, which was at a restorer until right before the sale. But that did not seem to matter. Six bidders vied for the work, and some attributed its popularity to the Yves Saint Laurent effect: the memory of three other Mondrians that were among the highlights of the sale of art and objects belonging to Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Bergé, at Christie’s in Paris in February. One Mondrian from that collection, a 1922 canvas, brought $24.5 million and was said to have been purchased by the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening was the enthusiasm buyers had for Impressionist paintings.

Three were from the estate of Marian Kingsland Frelinghuysen, an heir of Henry O. and Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer, celebrated collectors who left a portion of their collection — prime examples of masters like Degas, Cassatt, Courbet, Manet and Monet — to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1929.

Six bidders fought for Monet’s “Sailboat on the River Seine, Argenteuil,” from 1872. An early landscape, it ended up going to the Nahmad Gallery, with spaces in New York and London, for $3.4 million, nearly twice its high $1.8 million estimate.

Also from the same estate were two paintings by Pissarro. “The Goat Keeper,” a peasant woman feeding a goat, was estimated at $1.4 million to $1.8 million. Four people went for the painting, which was sold to a telephone bidder for $2.5 million. “Flood in Pontoise” (1882), a landscape depicting the rising water from the river Oise, was bought by another telephone bidder for $2.9 million.

Canvases by Tamara de Lempicka are plentiful this season, and a group of them were being sold at Sotheby’s from the collection of Wolfgang Joop, a German fashion designer.

A record price for the artist was set for a classic Art Deco canvas, “Portrait of Marjorie Ferry,” a 1932 image of a cabaret singer posed topless and draped in gray folded drapery. Estimated at $4 million to $6 million, it was bought by a telephone bidder for $4.8 million.

After the sale, as the crowd was trying to make sense of the evening’s results, Lionel Pissarro, a Paris dealer who is a great-grandson of the artist Camille Pissarro, said: “Sotheby’s readjusted Impressionist prices thinking they wouldn’t have the buyers. They didn’t do that for modern masters and the results were just the opposite.”

Alexander Massouras

Alexander Massouras can be reached at studio@massouras.co.uk

Felix Sockwell

Work hard. Respect the audience. Love your craft.

Felix "Sock" is an ornery Texan who honed his skill as a promotional and advertising art director before moving from TX to San Francisco in early 1997, and later co-founded B.I.G., Ogilvy’s Brand Integration Group in NYC the following year. In 1999 Sockwell left to build his own practise, concentrating soley on the art and science of identity design and illustration. He frequents NYC to meet and hang out with friends & clients, but prefers Maplewood, New Jersey with his wife and 2 beautiful girls, Brooke and Natalie. Felix is also for hire on the pitch (central midfield/ left wing preferably).

Top Art Auction Prices in April

The top most expensive works of fine art sold at auction in April 2009, sold for a total of over $17.4 million.



Raoul Dufy
* Title: Bateaux et barques aux Martigues
* Medium: oil on canvas
* Size: 18.1 x 21.4 in. / 46 x 54.4 cm.
* Sale Of: Artcurial – Briest- Poulain - F.Tajan: Monday, April 20, 2009
* Sold For: 644,922 Euro (848,358 US$) PREMIUM

ERIC ZENER

Eric Zener lives in Marin County, CA north of San Francisco and is represented by Gallery Henoch in New York City www.galleryhenoch.com. His work is exquisite and mesmerizing. He is a rare talent both as a person and an artist at merely 41 years old. I envision/predict that the Whitney Museum of American Art will have a retrospective of Eric's work someday. Note: both a good investment and beautiful to live with...And if I can be instrumental in making that retrospective happen, I will! Enjoy. www.ericzener.com

BORN: 1966
EDUCATION: 1988 University of California, Santa Barbara, BA
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2009 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY
2008 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY
2008 Spur Projects, Woodside, CA
2007 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY
2006 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY
2006 Bank Of America Building, San Francisco, CA
2005 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY
2005 S.C.A.P.E., Los Angeles, CA
2005 Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2004 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY
2003 Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2002 Gallery Henoch, New York, NY
2002 Diane Nelson Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA
2002 Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2001 LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
2001 Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2000 Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2000 Casa Forestal, St. Marti de Empuries, Spain
1999 Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1998 Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1997 Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1997 California Arts Council, Sacramento, CA
1997 Alfabia Museum, Sumoto, Japan
1997 Galleria Prova, Tokyo, Japan
1996 Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1995 Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1994 Hespe Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1990 Gerald Steven's Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA

SELECTED AWARDS:
II Beca Primavera de L’Ajuntament de l’Escala, Int'l Juried Competition,
Residency and Exhibition, March 2000 – June 2000
Palm Springs Desert Museum, 31st Annual Nat'l Juried Exhibition, April 2000
New American Paintings, # 19, Nat'l Juried Competition, December 1998

$80 Million? Try a Tenth of That. Art’s New Numbers.

TWO Madoff victims and a hedge fund manager are among the sellers at this spring’s important auctions of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art.

You could say a faint whiff of desperation is in the air: the catalogs are a shadow of what they were six months ago, as are the values and — for the most part — quality of the paintings, drawings and sculptures on offer.

When the season kicks off at Sotheby’s on Tuesday night, the two most expensive works of the evening — and of the week — will be a portrait that Picasso painted of his daughter, Maya, when she was just 2 ½ years old and one of Alberto Giacometti’s rare sculptures of a cat. Both are estimated to fetch $16 million to $24 million.

That’s a lot of money in today’s world. But over the last five years, art values escalated to the point where prices had to pass the $80 million mark to create sticker shock.

As recently as six months ago, sellers, their bank accounts flush with cash incentives from Sotheby’s and Christie’s, readily parted with rare treasures like Degas pastels and Bacon self-portraits. After all, they were ensured astronomical prices no matter what, and many of them were betting that the good times were about to end.

These collectors were right and ended up the season’s winners. But in November the music stopped, and auction houses found themselves out millions of dollars when works they had guaranteed either failed to sell or brought far less than expected. Sotheby’s, a public company, reported $52 million in losses last fall, and its stock plummeted from a high of $61.40 in 2007 to about $10 a share now. Because Christie’s is privately held, its finances are more difficult to gauge.

Immediately after the November sales, both auction houses announced that they would give guarantees — an undisclosed sum promised to a seller regardless of a sale’s outcome — only when exceptional pieces or collections come to market. Instead, they are offering some consignors what is called an advance, prepaying a portion of the expected sale proceeds upfront; if the work doesn’t sell, the money has to be returned.

But now collectors are loath to part with anything if they don’t have to, and few high-value pieces are coming to auction. In addition, auction houses are consciously trying to keep estimates low in hopes of creating the illusion that there are bargains to be had.

“It’s been tough,” admitted Brett Gorvy, a co-head of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art department. “How do you persuade people to sell at new price points without financial incentives? How do you put together a relatively risk-free sale?”

He and his colleagues at Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & Company are playing it safe, assuming that buyers will too. The buzzword this spring is conservative, with catalogs filled with blue-chip artists rather than emerging names.

“There’s more comfort in Impressionist and modern art because it has been less volatile,” said Guy Bennett, head of Christie’s Impressionist and modern art department in New York. “We haven’t seen the rapid acceleration that other markets have.”

In years past dealers took their cues from the auction houses, often organizing shows of artists who had sold well. Now the opposite is happening. Capitalizing on the highly praised exhibition of “Mosqueteros,” a show of late Picassos at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, both Sotheby’s and Christie’s are featuring the artist on the covers of their Impressionist and modern art catalogs.

Auction house experts are also avoiding once-ubiquitous artists whose market cachet has been diminished. What is for sale is art that is perceived to be safe and commercial. “These are things that will sell,” said Tobias Meyer, worldwide director of Sotheby’s contemporary art department, describing his coming sale. “Works that gives the message the market still exists.”


One Pricey Cat
ARTIST: Giacometti
TITLE: “The Cat”
AUCTION HOUSE: Sotheby’s
ESTIMATE: $16 million to $24 million

For collectors of sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, the dog is king, but some might say cats run a close second. This one happens to be one of the most expensive works in Sotheby’s sale on Tuesday. Although Giacometti was best known for his depictions of the human figure, he produced bronzes of both animals and once even told a writer: “The dog is myself. One day I saw it like that in the street. I was that dog.” Cats, some scholars say, were the artist’s metaphor for the vulnerability of the human race, and his renderings of them are particularly rare; there hasn’t been one at auction since 1975, when a similar sculpture fetched $130,000 at Sotheby’s in New York (over $500,000 in today’s dollars). On Tuesday Sotheby’s will once again be featuring a cat in its sale of Impressionist and modern art. Made in 1951 and cast in 1959 in an edition of eight, it is being sold by an unidentified Swedish collector who bought it in the 1960s. The auction house expects it to bring $16 million to $24 million. (Earlier this year, dealers say, Sotheby’s tried to sell the sculpture privately for a higher price.) Whether this will be catnip for collectors is anyone’s guess. A second cat from the same edition is rumored to be for sale privately in New York.

Once in a Lifetime
ARTIST: Monet
TITLE: “Sailboat on the River Seine, Argenteuil”
AUCTION HOUSE: Sotheby’s
ESTIMATE: $1.2 million to $1.8 million

Because the best Impressionist paintings are either hanging on museum walls or secreted away by collectors who are loath to part with them, anyone looking for one in today’s economy will most likely have to rely on a timely death. Estate property has its benefits. For starters, estimates are nearly always low because the heirs are generally trying to raise cash to pay taxes. And because auction houses set the estimates for these works and this year want to make them as enticing as possible to lure buyers, there might be bargains in store. Collections from estates are also usually fresh to the market. This spring Sotheby’s was able to win a group of three paintings — this Monet along with two canvases by Pissarro — that have been in the same family since the early years of the 20th century.

They come from the estate of Marian Kingsland Frelinghuysen, an heir of Henry O. and Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer, celebrated collectors who left the bulk of their collection — which included prime examples of masters like Degas, Cassatt, Courbet, Manet and Monet — to the Metropolitan Museum of Art after Mrs. Havemeyer died in 1929. But some works stayed in the family. Among the best is Monet’s “Sailboat on the River Seine, Argenteuil,” from 1872, which has been in the Havemeyer family since 1901 and will be sold on Tuesday. A small canvas, measuring 1.6-by-2-feet, it is conservatively estimated to bring $1.2 million to $1.8 million. Monet painted the sun-dappled scene at his home outside of Paris. It is an early landscape as well as one of his first attempts at depicting outdoor light.

Already Sold?
ARTIST: Kippenberger
TITLE: Untitled
AUCTION HOUSE: Sotheby’s
ESTIMATE: $3.5 million to $4.5 million

After the November auctions, top officials at Sotheby’s and Christie’s stopped offering sellers financing. But rules are made to be broken, and this spring Sotheby’s has given Dakis Joannou, a Greek industrialist, a guarantee for works he is auctioning on May 12. Sotheby’s is protected, however, by having what is called an irrevocable bid, meaning that a buyer has already agreed to purchase the art for an undisclosed sum. And if someone else wants to pay more? Then the original bidder gets a percentage of the profits. The highlight of the group, and the cover image of Sotheby’s May 12 sale, is a 1988 self-portrait by the German artist Martin Kippenberger. The piece is an example of the kind of art that is considered a safe sale these days. Depicting himself as paunchy, middle- aged and slumped over, the artist shows himself clad in nothing but white underpants. (He painted it, along with a series of others, after looking at a photograph of Picasso dressed similarly.) The two yellow balloons he holds are thought to be either a metaphor for aging or for the buoyant art market of the 1980s. Sotheby’s is banking on the fact that Kippenberger’s profile in the United States has never been higher, thanks to a major retrospective of his work on view at the Museum of Modern Art. “Kippenberger is someone who appeals to an international market, and his prices haven’t accelerated,” said Tobias Meyer of Sotheby’s. “This painting is very rare.” Of all his work, self-portraits are the most desirable.

The Big Blue Egg
ARTIST: Jeff Koons
TITLE: “Baroque Egg With Bow (Turquoise/Magenta)”
AUCTION HOUSE: Sotheby’s
ESTIMATE: $6 million to $8 million

From 1994 to 2008 Jeff Koons created five versions of the monumental sculpture “Baroque Egg With Bow,” each in a different color. Part of the artist’s “Celebration” series, in which Mr. Koons fashioned oversized children’s toys in shiny colors, the egg to be auctioned this week belongs to Daniel S. Loeb, a hedge fund manager who bought it from the Gagosian Gallery in 2004 . As part as Mr. Loeb’s recent efforts to sell the egg, Mr. Gagosian featured it last fall in “For What You Are About to Receive,” an exhibition held at the Red October Chocolate Factory in Moscow where contemporary art experts said he was asking around $20 million for it. When it remained unsold, Mr. Loeb decided to try his luck at auction. Sotheby’s estimates that the sculpture will bring $6 million to $8 million. Although it is not considered as important as some of Mr. Koons’s other monumental sculptures, the price is remarkably low considering that in June his “Balloon Flower (Magenta),” also from the “Celebration” series, sold at Christie’s in London for $25.7 million.


When It Rains It Pours
ARTIST: Tamara de Lempicka
TITLE: “Portrait of Madame M.”
AUCTION HOUSE: Christie’s
ESTIMATE: $6 million to $8 million

While the odd painting by the Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka comes up at auction every year or so, the market is flooded with them this season. Six are for sale in two consecutive evenings at Sotheby’s and Christie’s this week (four at Sotheby’s and two at Christie’s), and six more will be up in day auctions. Ten of them belong to Wolfgang Joop, a German fashion designer, who is taking advantage of the fact that in these tough times he can get star billing for his paintings, whereas a year ago, when there was no end of quality works for sale, these paintings would have been relegated to the back of a catalog. As fate would have it, Christie’s is also selling two important canvases by Lempicka. Epitomizing Paris in the roaring 1920s and 1930s, Lempicka’s work consists primarily of glamorous portraits of men and women of the period. This one, “Portrait of Madame M.,’’ is for sale at Christie’s and was painted in 1932 when André Morillot, a French lawyer, commissioned Lempicka to paint his wife, Marie-Thérèse Morand Morillot, as a gift to her after their marriage in 1929.

The Sure Thing
ARTIST: Calder
TITLE: Untitled
AUCTION HOUSE: Christie’s
ESTIMATE: $1.2 million to $1.8 million

The sculptor Alexander Calder is proving to be the art world’s comfort food. In depressed times, when prices for most artists drop, his work has consistently remained recession- proof. In a dreary sale at Sotheby’s in November, for instance, four bidders wanted to take home “Deux Dates,’’ a painted metal and wire hanging mobile executed from 1964 to 1969. It ended up selling for $2.4 million, well above its high $1.8 million estimate. While his work never appealed to the Japanese who were responsible for the 1980s art boom or to the hedge fund billionaires or newly rich Russians who pushed prices in the last few years, it has, for the most part, been snapped up by low-key, seasoned collectors. As sculpture continues to be a hot commodity, works by this major American artist remain a perennial favorite. Early Calders are particularly desirable, as Christie’s knows. Among the three works it is selling is an untitled wall relief executed around 1943. Fashioned from wood and wire, it is expected to sell for $1.2 million to $1.8 million. Not only are the date and composition of this work appealing, its provenance is too. The sculpture was acquired in the early ’60s by the architect Edward Larrabee Barnes and his wife, Mary. Mr. Barnes, who died in 2004, left it to his son, John, who is selling it on May 13.
by Carol Vogel for NYTimes