An Auctioneer’s Opening Bid

In the latest skirmish of New York’s art auction wars, the scrappy challenger has grabbed the leading position--if only for the moment. While still running well behind longtime industry giants Sotheby’s and Christie’s in terms of grosses, the auction house Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg will launch this spring’s round of Impressionist and modern art sales on Monday night with the season’s premier slate of big-ticket artworks.

The star attraction is a cache of five works by Paul Cezanne and two by Vincent van Gogh from the collection of Heinz Berggruen, a German-born dealer and collector who fled the Nazis and developed his business in Paris. In a gesture of reconciliation and shrewd estate planning, Berggruen moved back to Berlin in 1996 and accepted the German government’s offer to buy his holding of 20th century art for $110 million and to provide a museum to display the collection.

The Germans were not able to raise funds to purchase the Cezannes and Van Goghs as well, so Berggruen sold them to Phillips at an undisclosed price. The auction house has made a practice of buying some artworks for resale--rather than taking them on consignment, as is customary--as part of a strategy to build its business quickly. Phillips estimates that the seven works from Berggruen’s collection will bring a total of $98.5 million to $135 million.

The priciest item to be offered Monday night is “La Montagne Sainte-Victoire,” a classic depiction of a Provencal mountain by Cezanne, valued at $35 million to $45 million. Some auction observers speculate that the J. Paul Getty Museum might bid on the painting because it would fill a gap in the museum’s spotty 19th century collection with a landmark precursor to Modernism. The Getty currently owns three portraits and two still lifes by Cezanne, but no landscape.

As a matter of policy, the Getty does not comment on potential acquisitions. A museum press officer reiterated the policy in regard to the upcoming auction.

The other Berggruen Cezannes scheduled to go on the block are “L’Allee a Chantilly,” a painting of a shady lane, valued at $10 million to $15 million; two portraits of a young girl with a doll, one estimated at $12 million to $18 million, the other at $6 million to $8 million; and a graphite and watercolor depiction of a flower garden that’s expected to bring $1.5 million to $2 million. The Van Goghs in the auction are “Le Jardin d’Automne,” a fall-foliage landscape, valued at $30 million to $40 million, and an ink drawing of a wheat field near Arles, estimated at $4 million to $6 million.

It remains to be seen if the estimates are accurate, or if the works will even be sold on Monday night. Last November, in Phillips’ previous big Impressionist and modern art sale, 13 of the 29 works offered went begging.

Nonetheless, the company has made big gains in the year and a half since it was purchased by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. With a major infusion of cash and aggressive leadership, the once-sleepy, London-based auction house has assembled an impressive amount of material for its sales and has wooed well-connected veterans from its competitors, including Simon de Pury, a former star at Sotheby’s who is now chairman of Phillips.

In another move signaling that Phillips is in New York to stay, the firm has taken a long-term lease on a former bank building at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street for its American headquarters. The Monday night sale will be the first auction in that facility.

Established Houses Prepare for Sales

The Big Two are still the Big Two, however. And they have fat catalogs of expensive artworks to prove it.

Christie’s is gearing up for its major spring sale of Impressionist and modern art, next Wednesday night, with a Picasso as the headline attraction. “Olga Picasso,” a neoclassical portrait of the artist’s first wife, painted in 1923, is expected to command about $30 million. It’s a hefty sum, though far less than the record $55 million paid last November at Christie’s for a Blue Period Picasso portrait, “Woman With Crossed Arms.”

Sotheby’s has also landed many works of special interest. Next Tuesday night and the following morning, the auction house will offer a collection of modern and contemporary art assembled by Stanley J. Seeger, an independently wealthy composer who lives in England. Estimates on the 129 works range from a low of $2,000 for a 1978 charcoal drawing of Prussian soldiers by British artist Malcolm Morley to a high of $6 million for Francis Bacon’s 1979 three-panel painting “Study of the Human Body.” Among other prime paintings are Jasper Johns’ “Colored Alphabet” ($2 million to $3 million) and Joan Miro’s “Nocturne” ($2.5 million to $3.5 million).

Among highlights of its major spring auction of Impressionist and modern art, on May 10, Sotheby’s will offer a Cezanne still life, “Pichet et Fruits sur une Table” ($14 million to $20 million) and German Expressionist Max Beckmann’s “Self-Portrait With Horn” ($7 million to $10 million).

The round of Impressionist and modern auctions will be followed by a marathon of contemporary art sales May 14-17. They will feature everything from a digital inkjet self-portrait by Chuck Close, valued at a mere $4,000 to $6,000, to multimillion-dollar pieces by Jackson Pollock, Gerhard Richter and Richard Diebenkkorn.

The most highly publicized item is sculptor Jeff Koons’ “Michael Jackson and Bubbles,” a life-size statue of the entertainer and his pet chimpanzee, in gold-and-white glazed porcelain. It was produced in an edition of three, along with an artist’s proof. The other casts are in the collections of the Broad Art Foundation in Santa Monica, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Dakis Joannou Foundation in Athens.

Another Koons’ porcelain, “Pink Panther,” set an auction record for the artist last year, when it was sold for $1.8 million. Sotheby’s expects “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” to soar past that figure on May 15, when the firm will put the sculpture on the block with an estimated price of $3 million to $4 million.