Alberto Giacometti

Uncertainty

What value do we place on art in times of immense uncertainty? Will  Modern and Contemporary paintings and sculptures now be seen as safe havens? Or will they be cast aside due to income losses, especially on the stock market? These questions are on everyone’s mind, and the art market is undergoing profound self-examination. Does it still make sense to maintain a system as costly as the one currently upheld by art professionals?

Art Basel and prohibitive costs

Art Basel 2023

In the gallery world, from Paris to New York, activity has been significantly pared back. Meanwhile, Art Basel, the organizer of the art market’s marquee events from Hong Kong to Miami, is quietly being criticized by dealers for its prohibitive costs and iron-fisted management. So much so that one of the historic names in French avant-garde art, Air de Paris—founded 35 years ago and an early supporter of now-global stars like Carsten Höller and Philippe Parreno—has just announced its voluntary withdrawal from the Art Basel fair in Basel. And yet, just two years ago, professionals were willing to do anything to be among the “happy few” admitted to that elite circle. (See here the last report about Art Basel in Basel).

Overall drop

Paul Cézanne

Then there are the Modern and Contemporary art auctions in New York—this year taking place over the course of a week starting May 12—which, in theory, set the tone for the market over the following six months. The major players have acknowledged an observed drop in overall volume as well as a decrease in the top prices for individual works.

Yet despite this, and even though auction catalogues have not yet been made public, the season promises to be exciting, with major lots being announced daily.

Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti

The season’s highest estimated value is $70 million, for a “Tall Thin Head”(Grande tête mince) by Alberto Giacometti at Sotheby’s. It’s a bold gamble in a climate of widespread caution, especially since the work is not guaranteed¹. Cast in bronze in an edition of six in 1955, the sculpture features areas repainted by the artist himself to enhance the sense of volume. Measuring 65 cm in height, it presents an oversized rendering of the head of his brother Diego, one of his favorite models. According to the Giacometti Foundation, which owns the plaster version: “This sculpture pushes the elongation of forms to the extreme…and seems always to shy away from confrontation.”

Strikingly narrow

Alberto Giacometti

That’s because, seen from the front, the figure is strikingly narrow. In 2013, another version of the head fetched $50 million. The one now offered by Sotheby’s likely belonged to the family of Giacometti’s dealers, the Maeghts, before being acquired by American real estate magnate Sheldon Solow, who died in 2020. Giacometti’s auction record remains the $141.2 million achieved in 2015 for his elongated male figure, “Man Pointing” (1947).

Daniella Luxembourg

Sotheby’s has also secured the collection of well-known dealer Daniella Luxembourg, who is based in both New York and London. The ensemble includes 15 works aimed at connoisseurs—primarily Italian art—with a total estimated value of $30 million. Among them is a signature painting by Lucio Fontana from 1963, “La fine di Dio” (“The End of God”), estimated at $12 million. Monumental and monochrome in iridescent brown tones dusted with diamond powder, the work is shaped like an egg which has been slashed and pierced at its center.

The end of god

Lucio Fontana

Together with its nihilistic title, it evokes both the world’s origin and its end. Fontana created between 34 and 38 such works, depending on the source. The record price for a “Fine di Dio” was set in 2015, at the height of Fontana’s market hype, reaching $29.1 million.

When asked why she has chosen to sell the work now, Daniella Luxembourg explains: “One sells based on life circumstances. I bought this “Fine di Dio” in 2002 from an Italian dealer, at a time when I was partnered with Simon de Pury in a gallery in Zurich where we held a Fontana exhibition. It was very expensive. It took me a long time to pay for it. But the work radiates a true cosmic power. Art always finds the people who deserve it—even in the most difficult times.”

Cézanne and his wife

Paul Cézanne

One of the most striking modern works at Sotheby’s is a portrait by Paul Cézanne of his wife, from the collection of Rolf and Margit Weinberg of Zurich. Cézanne, the famed painter from Aix-en-Provence (which will be celebrating him with several exhibitions starting in late June 2025), famously wrote to fellow artist Émile Bernard in 1904: “Render nature with the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, all placed in perspective.” A radical idea that directly anticipates Cubism. This small portrait perfectly embodies that vision. Here, the downcast face is reduced to a simple oval. In the background, Cézanne has depicted the curve of a crimson chair back and a greenish wall. At the precise top center of the painting, he delicately traced the parting of his wife’s pulled-back hair. Dated 1877, this small-format work is estimated at $5 million. Cézanne painted his wife 29 times, though these works don’t exactly read as declarations of love. She is consistently portrayed with unflattering features in a static, detached manner. (See here a report about the portraits by Cézanne)

Grégoire Billault

Commenting on the context of the spring 2025 sales, Grégoire Billault, head of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s, notes: “Yes, the economic situation is complex, but I believe the numbers, and lately they’ve been quite positive. A Chinese imperial calligraphy scroll just sold in Hong Kong for $32 million—21 times its estimate. A “Standing Woman” bronze by Giacometti estimated at €2.5 million sold for €4.9 million in Paris on April 10 at Sotheby’s. And a day earlier, a Toulouse-Lautrec painting estimated at €2.5 million sold at Christie’s for €5.3 million.”

Adrien Meyer

At Christie’s, Adrien Meyer, co-chairman of Impressionist and Modern Art, speaks to the situation’s volatility: “The world’s psychological state changes from one day to the next. But one could imagine that, like gold, art might become a safe haven. Our March sales in London performed almost ‘abnormally’ well, with half of the Modern and Contemporary lots exceeding their high estimates.”

The Peupliers series

One of the gems of the April 16 sale at Christie’s is a landscape painted by Claude Monet from 1891 near his home in Giverny, estimated at $30 million. “Poplars on the Banks of the Epte, Dusk” (Peupliers sur les bords de l’Epte, Crépuscule) shows a line of trees melting into a diffuse light, “chiseled, almost,” in the words of Adrien Meyer, who adds: “For half a century, this painting belonged to the same Boston family, after having been part of the personal collection of dealer Paul Durand-Ruel.”

Claude Monet

As part of his pioneering serial approach, Monet painted no fewer than 24 versions of this riverside scene in 1891. Eleven of them have gone to auction since 1985. In 2022, an autumnal version set a record at $36.4 million. “That canvas was clearly inferior in quality to the one we’re offering today,” Meyer claims.

A Rothko from the Bass collection

Mark Rothko

Coincidentally, that work belonged to Ann and Seth Bass, a couple who made their fortune in oil. The contents of their modernist Fort Worth home are being sold this May in New York, led by a Mark Rothko canvas from the early 1950s in tones of plum, black and orange, estimated at $35 million. (See here a report about the Rothko retrospective at Fondation Vuitton)

Baby Boom by Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat

The centerpiece of Christie’s Contemporary sales is a 1982 painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat titled “Baby Boom,” estimated around $20 million. It features three figures in Basquiat’s signature style which could represent a father, a mother and a child (it could be the artist himself). At the time, short on funds, Basquiat was building stretchers from crossed wooden slats onto which he stretched the canvas. The painting, included in the 2019 retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (See here a report about the Basquiat retrospective), was acquired in 2001 for $1.1 million. It is believed to now belong to American collector Peter Brant, one of Basquiat’s earliest supporters.

Conservative estimate

The painting was unsuccessfully offered on the private market a few years ago by the Lévy-Gorvy Gallery for $10 million more. Times have changed, and conservative estimates have become the rule.

Still, the market’s appetite remains clear: On March 28 in Hong Kong, Christie’s sold a 1984 Basquiat in a powerful blood-red palette, “Sabado por la Noche” (“Saturday Night”), for $14.4 million, after having been estimated at $12.2 million.

The record price

Seven of the ten highest auction prices ever achieved for Basquiat correspond to works from 1982, the same year as “Baby Boom.” The all-time record stands at $100.6 million.

But that impressive outcome was back in 2017… We’re no longer in the era of $100 million hammer prices.

¹ A guarantee is a mechanism by which, prior to auction, a seller is assured by the auction house that the work will sell for a minimum price—paid for by the company or a third party—, regardless of the outcome of the bidding.