Market Hits a Speed Bump at Sotheby’s
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The rain wasn’t the only thing dampening spirits on York Avenue last night. At Sotheby’s highly anticipated sale of Impressionist and Modern art, 61 lots expected to total between $203 million and $275 million missed the low estimate, bringing just $194 million. While 78% of works did sell, and the overall total was the highest for the house in 14 years, several paintings the house had high hopes for failed to find willing buyers.
Sotheby’s put on a stiff upper lip, reporting that it was pleased with the results and noting world records set for major artists including Mondrian, Gauguin, and Modigliani. “The pictures found their prices” said Sotheby’s Impressionist expert David Norman. Among many expensive masterpieces, a large collection of sculpture from a Pennsylvania couple topped nearly all its estimates, their conservative price tags coaxing in the buyers. Most painful for the house will be the lots that failed to sell from the Hester Diamond collection: a Kandinsky estimated at $20-30 million and a Picasso estimated at $8-12 million. Both were guaranteed by the house. “It’s a great work,” said Mr. Norman. “And we are happy to have it.”
The sale was a bit of a disappointment given the successful sale at Christie’s the day before. Though Sotheby’s had more and better material, the $128 million Christie’s amassed on Wednesday easily beat that house’s estimate.
“Tonight was a financial success for the company,” said Sotheby’s spokesperson, Diana Phillips. Ms. Phillips noted that Sotheby’s had been successful with guarantees this year and tonight.
But dealers and collectors blamed said Sotheby’s had set prices too aggressively. “The estimates were too high,” said London collector Joseph Hackmey after the sale. “I don’t like to bid against the reserve. I like to bid against a body.” Mr. Hackmey was referring to the auction-house practice of bidding up to the low estimate, even if there is no actual person executing a bid.
Last night Mr. Hackmey paid $11.2 million for Van Gogh’s “Bridge at Trinquetaille” at Christie’s. Mr. Hackmey said he would have bid on any of the big pictures at Sotheby’s but thought the estimates were out of line.
Overall the sale seemed to indicate that, while still strong, the auction market is not nearly as robust as it was in the late 1980s – the period everyone still looks to for comparison. “Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the art market was really booming, we typically had sales totaling $300 million,” said dealer David Nash of Mitchell-Innes & Nash, the former head of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art department. “We would always wonder if there would be enough buyers, and there were.”
The top lot was a lush image of Tahiti by Paul Gauguin. Gauguin got more mileage out of burlap than probably any other artist. “Maternite II” of 1899 does have all the requisite Tahitian touches, including a yellow background and topless beauties immodestly cloaked in the latest in sarong fashion. It sold for a $39.2 million to a phone bidder against a $40-50 million estimate, setting a world auction record.
Plenty of presale speculation centered on whether the picture would even sell. Some dealers complained of condition issues and said it was not as pleasing as other major Tahitian Gauguins. Indeed, the composition does seem a bit squeezed, as if Gauguin was running low on the burlap, trying to fit a few too many figures on too few square inches.
Ultimately the rarity and importance of the painting trumped all presale jitters. There is another version of the painting in the Hermitage in Russia, but Tahitian Gauguins only come up for sale every couple decades. Sotheby’s says there are perhaps six remaining in private collections.
Another highlight was a painting by the tragically hip Amedeo Modigliani (a biopic staring Andy Garcia is on the way). Modigliani has been served up in museum retrospectives recently and has been making heads turn on the auction block. Last fall Christie’s sold a large nude, formerly owned by casino mogul Steve Wynn, for $26.9 million. The artist’s nudes are considered the “it” pictures of the artist’s oeuvre.
The painting had all the Modigliani hallmarks: blank almond eyes, a swanlike neck, and mannerist elongated limbs. It was also the last picture he made of his grand amour, and the second to last time he wielded a brush. The artist, known to have overindulged in all life’s carnal pleasures, contracted tuberculosis and died in 1920. Two days later, Jeanne, distraught and still carrying their child, threw herself out a window.
“He’s not the world’s most important artist,” said art advisor Thea Westreich before the sale. “But this painting is perfection. It’s mind-bogglingly gorgeous. It’s a killer painting. If anyone is out there with money, this is the one.”
Clearly the market agreed. “Jeanne Hebuterne (Devant une Porte),” saddled with what looked like a heavy duty estimate – pegged at $20-30 million – set an auction record, selling for $31 million after slow and steady bidding.
The seller, Mrs. Dorothy Cherry, whose late husband was a noted collector and founder of the health-benefits company Humana, also consigned a portrait by Chaim Soutine. “Le Chasseur de Chez Maxim’s” of 1925, an evocative portrait of a restaurant worker in a bright red uniform, went soaring over the $2.5-3.5 million estimate, setting yet another auction record and selling for $6.7 million.
Many of the other major paintings in the sale – including the Picasso and the Kandinsky that failed to sell – were consigned by Hester Diamond. Ms. Diamond’s husband, Harold, a major modern art dealer, died in 1982. These works have been hanging in her Central Park West apartment ever since and have been on and off the market in recent times. Sotheby’s put the lots near the start of the sale, hoping they would jump start the serious spending. The result was precisely the opposite. In the end, the three pieces that sold totaled $39.2 million, but the sale took awhile to recover.
Ms. Diamond’s 1912 Kandinsky, “Skizze fur Sintflut II” (Sketch for Deluge II), estimated to bring $20-30 million, failed to sell. This was the cover lot, which the Diamonds bought at Christie’s in 1980 for $950,000.The picture was certainly not a perfect 10, said those in the trade. It looked more like a watercolor than an oil painting. The colors weren’t as punchy as they might have been.
One bright spot was Piet Mondrian’s Modernist milestone, “New York. 1941/Boogie Woogie. 1941-42” Mondrian only completed three paintings in New York, where he lived during World War II. Legend has it that on Mondrian’s first night in town dealer Sidney Janis took the artist to a jazz club, where he was bowled over by the “boogie woogie” piano music. It’s one of the only examples – if not the finest – to come on the market in the last decade, and clearly whetted the appetite of today’s top-tier buyers.
The Mondrian sold for $21 million, at the low end of the $20-30 million estimate. Bidding was less than spectacular, stalling around $18 million, when an Asian bidder in the front row made one lone bid, only to drop out to a phone bidder willing to go the distance.
While the Diamond collection got star billing, it was actually the Berman collection that soared over its high estimates. The collection, mostly sculpture, was put together by a Pennsylvania couple, Muriel and Philip Berman. They bought certain artists in great depth – including hundreds of Lynn Chadwicks – and donated many large-scale sculptures. Mr. Berman believed having a sculpture in front of a building improved the quality of life inside.
The 14 lots brought $26.9 million total, including a world record for a 1975 Henry Moore sculpture, which sold for $8.4 million, above the $4-6 million estimate. Sale proceeds will benefit a foundation established by Nancy Berman, the late couple’s daughter.