NEW YORK - A Picasso portrait and a Monet landscape, a Matisse cutout and a Henry Moore sculpture - works that would have easily brought millions of dollars in seasons past - were just a few examples of big-ticket Impressionist and modern art that failed to sell on Monday night at Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg.
Even Phillips executives were unable to put a positive spin on the auction, the first in two frenetic weeks of fine-art sales.
"We expected it to be difficult, but not that difficult," said a deflated Simon de Pury, chairman of Phillips and the evening's auctioneer. "It's clearly a very disappointing result."
Of the 44 works up for sale, a mere 19 found buyers. The auction totaled $7 million, one-seventh of its $49.3 million low estimate.
Third-place house
The struggling third-place auction house lacked both the manpower and the financial muscle to compete with Sotheby's and Christie's for this fall's best offerings. The resulting sale consisted of mediocre paintings, drawings and sculptures, many of which had been on the market all too recently. And everyone knew it.
The sale wasn't a disaster from the start. It began with 14 works on paper by Klimt and Schiele that were identified in the catalog as "property from an American private collection." Experts said the seller was Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics mogul who was a founder of the year-old Neue Galerie, a museum of German and Austrian art in Manhattan. The success of the Neue Galerie and a current fashion for German art brought solid prices.
Two of the Klimts far exceeded their estimates. Nude With Spread Legs, estimated at $70,000 to $90,000, sold to James Roundell, the London dealer, for $141,500. Three bidders went for Crouching Nude From Left,which went to an unidentified buyer for $125,000, just above its $120,000 high estimate.
(Final prices include Phillips' commission: 19.5 percent of the first $100,000 and 10 percent of any amount above that. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)
German works strong
German paintings also brought surprisingly high prices. The evening's most expensive painting was by Lyonel Feininger, a New York-born painter of German-American parentage, whose work is more regularly seen in sales in Europe. His Newspaper Reader (1909) brought $2.2 million, just above its $2 million high estimate. Two telephone bidders tried to buy Crouching Deer, a 1911 painting by the German Expressionist Franz Marc. It sold to an unidentified telephone bidder for $999,500, just above its high estimate of $900,000.
As asking prices went up on Monday night, the salesroom became eerily quiet. And the minute a room goes quiet, even dealers or collectors who have planned to bid generally lose their nerve.
No hands went up for Japanese Bridge in Monet's Garden (1895-96). The painting, with a light pastel palette, had last been up for sale at Christie's in May 1999, when the Nahmad family, Lebanese dealers with galleries in New York and London, were said to have bought it for $5.9 million. Phillips estimated it would bring $6.5 million to $8.5 million, but de Pury stopped trying to rouse a bid at $5.6 million.
The cover work of the Phillips catalog was an early Picasso portrait, Bust of a Woman Smiling. Painted in 1901, when the artist was still under the influence of Toulouse-Lautrec, it shows a dark-haired woman wearing a large hat fashionable at the time. The painting had come from the sale of Belle Linsky's collection at Sotheby's in 1988, when it went to a Japanese collector for $4.4 million. On Monday night it was expected to bring $5 million to $7 million, but bidding stopped at $4.2 million.
Matisse's Tree in Flower (Mural Scroll, No. 1), from 1947-1949, had been offered privately at Sotheby's this year, with an asking price of $6 million. Several dealers were also approached to try to sell the cut-out without subjecting it to the harsh glare of public auction, but nobody was willing to meet the asking price.
On Monday night it carried an estimate of $4 million to $6 million, and Phillips is said to have given the seller, an unidentified American collector, a guarantee (an undisclosed minimum price regardless of a sale's outcome) of nearly $4 million. But nary a bidder could be spotted, and de Pury gave up at $2.6 million.
At Phillips' sale of Impressionist and modern art in London in June, the Nahmads bought about one-third of the lots.
On Monday night they were among the biggest sellers. In addition to Monet's Japanese Bridge, they were offering Argenteuil, Late Afternoon, a landscape of boats on the Seine at sunset, which went unsold at $3.6 million after an optimistic estimate of $5 million to $7 million. The painting had brought $3.5 million at Christie's in 1990. While the date represents a prime period for the artist, experts before the sale said the surface of the painting was thin, probably from overcleaning.
The sculpture market has been particularly strong recently, and Phillips had a 1955 cast of Rodin's Kiss (1880). But it failed to sell, even at $720,000, far below its low estimate, $1.4 million. So did Moore's Rocking Chair No. 2, a 1950 cast estimated at $750,000 to $900,000. Bidding began and ended at $480,000.
After the sale, many dealers and collectors quietly wondered if the evening might be the start of a tumbling art market. "I don't think it means much because the quality wasn't much," said Irving Blum, the Los Angeles dealer. "Sit tight and hang on to your hat. Things will be fine."