The Auction Season Opens In a Period of Transition

Come lawsuits or an aggressive new rival, this month is prime time for New York’s big auction houses. As this season’s installment of fall sales unfolds, collectors and dealers of high-end Impressionist, modern and contemporary art are converging in Manhattan to compete for the privilege of spending vast sums of money with the wave of a numbered paddle, the nod of a head or the flick of a wrist.

The recent settlement of a class-action lawsuit that accused Sotheby’s and Christie’s of price-fixing has placed a financial burden on the two houses--the longtime industry giants--while an ongoing federal antitrust probe has badly shaken their staffs. At the same time, Phillips, a London-based auction house purchased by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton a year ago, has effected a slight shift in the balance of power by establishing itself as a viable alternative to the Big Two in New York.

Beginning last spring and continuing this fall, the deep-pocketed Phillips has assembled big-name artworks to sell in New York, partly by purchasing pieces outright or offering hefty guarantees to sellers. Phillips rented space from the American Craft Museum for its initial sales, but it announced this week that it has entered into a long-term lease of a 12-story former bank building at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street for its new North American headquarters. A renovation of the facility is scheduled for completion next spring.

Meanwhile, the public ritual continues. “It’s driven by the art market, wealth and Wall Street,” says David Norman, an Impressionist and modern art specialist at Sotheby’s. Not to mention death, divorce and taxes--which feed the art market in good years and bad--or the seductive drama of the auctions themselves.

A round of Impressionist and modern art sales began Monday night at Phillips with a $32-million auction that fell far short of the company’s expectations and found no buyers for 13 of the 29 works offered. A landscape by Paul Cezanne brought the highest price, $8.5 million--an impressive sum but considerably less than the $11 million paid for the same work at Sotheby’s in 1996. An Impressionist landscape by Pierre Auguste Renoir commanded $6.7 million, the second-highest price at Phillips, while works by many other prominent artists valued at up to $2 million went begging.

But bigger game lies ahead.

Got a spare $25 million for a Blue Period Picasso? “Woman With Crossed Arms,” a brooding portrait of a hunched, introspective figure, will go on the block tonight at Christie’s. The Picasso, an early work painted in 1901-02, is the star item in an auction of 75 paintings and sculptures, expected to bring a total of $165 million to $220.7 million.

“This is the best Blue Period painting that has come on the market in many years,” says Christie’s specialist Nicholas Maclean. “The provenance is fantastic,” he says, noting that writer and collector Gertrude Stein originally owned the painting and that it has been in an American private collection since 1936 and displayed at the Art Institute of Chicago since 1972. The consignor, though not identified by the auction house, is reportedly Chicago collector Chauncey McCormick.

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Picasso was immensely prolific, but his early works are relatively rare. The last Blue Period painting to go on the block was a portrait of artist Angel Fernandez de Soto, purchased by Andrew Lloyd Webber for $29.1 million at Sotheby’s in 1995. “Our picture is larger and it certainly has a greater impact, so we’re hoping the estimate is quite conservative,” Maclean says.

Christie’s also has high hopes for Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian painting, “Landscape With Three Trees,” valued at $12 million to $16 million, and for Alberto Giacometti’s trademark bronze sculpture, “Tall Woman Standing,” which is expected to bring $10 million to $15 million.

Five bronze sculptures--two nude ballerinas and two horses by Edgar Degas, valued at $250,000 to $600,000 apiece, and a monumental nude female figure by Aristide Maillol, expected to bring between $1 million and $1.5 million--also will be offered at Christie’s tonight. The sculptures are part of the estate of Lucille Ellis Simon, the first wife of the late Los Angeles industrialist and collector Norton Simon. The Simons purchased the artworks in the early 1960s; they became the property of Lucille Ellis Simon when the couple divorced.

Sotheby’s will stage its major fall sale of Impressionist and modern art on Thursday night. Led by “Young Girl in a Garden,” an Impressionist painting by Edouard Manet, valued at $20 million to $30 million, the auction of 60 paintings and sculptures is expected to rack up a total of $151.6 million to $212.9 million.

The Manet is “the quintessential Impressionist-style picture,” Norman says, “and being 5 by 4 feet, it has a tremendous impact.” It also has a sterling record of ownership. “It was purchased from Manet’s estate by his brother and sister, the painter Berthe Morisot, and stayed in the family until 1990,” he says.

While Norman is optimistic about this and other works that are “fresh to the market,” he says pieces frequently seen at auction “will provide an extremely revealing snapshot” of the current market. They include paintings by Renoir and Amedeo Modigliani purchased by Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art in Las Vegas during the reign of former chairman Steve Wynn. Now consigned to auction, they bear estimated prices of $2 million to $6 million apiece.

Speculating that “the great, signature pieces” will escalate, Norman says that lesser works probably “will remain well below” prices established at the peak of the market in the late 1980s. But as usual, “we are holding our breath,” he says.

Next week will bring a marathon of postwar and contemporary art auctions at all three houses. Phillips will lead on Monday, followed by Sotheby’s on Tuesday and Christie’s on Nov. 16. Instead of Impressionist confections and Modernist classics, Abstract Expressionist canvases, anatomically explicit nude sculptures and multimedia installations will go on the block.

A highlight of Sotheby’s sale is 12 pieces from the collection of the Lannan Foundation, which operated a critically acclaimed exhibition space in Los Angeles from 1990 to 1995 but shifted its philanthropic focus to Native American programs and dispersed much of its art collection to museums all across the country.

Among Lannan works to be offered for sale are three sculptures by Isamu Noguchi and major paintings by Frank Stella, Brice Marden and Kenneth Noland. One piece to watch is Noland’s 1958 colorful abstraction “Heat,” from his “Target” series, says Sotheby’s contemporary art specialist Laura Paulson. “He may not have been the most sought-after artist in the last few years, but this ‘Target’ is as good as it gets and really represents a moment in time.” It’s valued at $250,000 to $350,000, but she won’t be surprised if the selling price is much higher.

At the very least, Paulson says, “this is an interesting time” for contemporary art auctions because “two different markets and two different generations of collectors have emerged. Their sensibilities and their interests are with the period they grew up with.”

That means relatively untested art can command bigger prices than major works by artists who made their mark several decades ago. “There’s a touch of speculation” in the younger crowd, she says, “but it’s more about new buyers coming in with very fresh eyes and a lot of advice. People in the two markets are focusing on the generation they know and paying parallel prices.”