More than a billion dollars' worth of art goes on sale in London over the next 10 days, the latest test of the market's resilience amid signs of recession. Prices for the most sought-after artists continued to rise in the last year, defying global economic gloom caused by falling stocks, rising oil prices and the mortgage meltdown.
Some experts predicted a slowdown, with a small number expecting a full-blown crash, but despite a few blips along the way and signs buyers are more cautious now than at the same time last year, auction houses are confident.
Reporting from this month's key Art Basel international contemporary art fair, the Art Newspaper reported buyers were thinking harder before parting with their cash. "A frazzled economy and boom-market pricing transformed some of last year's buyers into this year's browsers," it wrote. The London sales, second only to the equivalent series held in New York, kick off on Tuesday with Christie's Impressionist and modern art evening sale.
The highlight of the night likely to be Claude Monet's "Le Bassin aux Nympheas". Estimated to fetch between 18 and 24 million pounds ($35-47 million), it may break the auction record for the painter which stands at $41.5 million set when "Le Pont du Chemin de Fer a Argenteuil" sold in New York in May.
The 85-year-old artist shattered the world auction record for a living artist in May when "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" sold for $33.6 million in New York. Media reports said the buyer of the Freud was Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich, underlining the country's growing importance in the art market along with the Middle East and Asia. The owner of Chelsea Football Club was also reported to have bought Francis Bacon's "Triptych, 1976" for $86 million, another auction record, this time for post-war art.
On Monday Christie's expects Bacon's "Three Studies for Self-Portrait" to earn more than 10 million pounds, and a Jeff Koons sculpture called "Balloon Flower (Magenta)" to make about 12 million pounds.
Overall the auction house is selling art estimated to be worth up to 300 million pounds. Sotheby's is offering over 200 million pounds' worth of art, including two more Bacons - "Figure Turning", estimated at 10-15 million pounds and "Study For Head of George Dyer" (eight million pounds).
At the same auction next Tuesday, the company is offering a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting owned by Irish rock group U2 and estimated at 4-6 million pounds. To coincide with the Wimbledon tennis championship, former champion John McEnroe is selling an Andy Warhol of him and his former wife Tatum O'Neal to raise funds for charity. It is expected to fetch 250-350,000 pounds.
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