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War anxiety fails to dent art auction mark

By FREDERICK M. WINSHIP
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NEW YORK, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The global war against terrorism failed to weaken the international art auction market in its first major test since the tragic events of Sept. 11.

The test came late last week, when New York's three major art auction houses -- Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips -- held major sales of Impressionist and modern paintings and sculptures. This is the category of art most popular with collectors, museums, and the general public and was produced in the years 1867 to 1945.

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The sales fetched a total of $242 million, well above the houses' low pre-sale estimate of $216 million. This was good news for the $4 billion-a-year art market in general which had seen a severe reduction in sales by private dealers in the past two months as a result of terrorism's negative effect on an already shaky economy.

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"Given the events in New York and around the world that could have meant a difficult time, these sales have defied all the rules," Christopher Burge, honorary chairman of Christie's, told United Press International.

Remembering the chilling effect the Persian Gulf War had on the art market in 1990, the jittery auction business was focused on the first big sales of the fall season as indicators of how the market would react to the more limited engagement in Afghanistan. Some sellers, but not a significant number, had withdrawn artwork from two of the sales because they thought the market was too risky.

Although some paintings and sculpture failed to find bidders at all the sales, bidding was brisk on most lots, and in some cases sales prices rose above the houses' top estimates.

A world auction record was set for one of the major Impressionist painters -- Camille Pissarro, $6.6 million for his 1893 cityscape, "La Rue Saint-Lazare." It sold at Sotheby's for just above its high pre-sale estimate of $6.5 million.

Art of the highest quality brought the highest prices and lesser works either brought less or were passed over. It was a discriminating market, which can be a healthy market in a business that tries to relegate mediocre merchandise to its less advertised sales. The sale at Christie's was the best indication of the everlasting value of quality.

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Christie's sale of 64 artworks included 25 paintings and sculptures collected in the 1920s and 1930s by Rene Gaffe, a Belgian perfume millionaire and newspaper owner, who died in 1968 and left his collection to his wife, Jeanne, who died last year. Her will ordered the artwork sold for the benefit of the United Nations Children's Fund.

The collection brought $73.3 million, nearly double the estimate of $40 million. It will benefit UNICEF by the amount of $59 million, the largest amount ever given the organization.

The highest price for any work in the collection was $16.7 million for Fernand Leger's 1918 post-Cubist abstract painting, "Motor," an auction record for the artist. Fifteen bidders vied for the painting, which had been estimated to bring $6 million tops.

Other top Gaffe prices were two paintings by Joan Miro -- an abstract female portrait formed of pin-on body parts and an abstract image of an ostrich -- that sold for $12.6 million and $11 million respectively. A 1908 Cubist work, "Nude in a Forest," by Pablo Picasso, once in the collection of Gertrude Stein, brought $5 million.

Art from other sources in the Christie's sale included Picasso's bronze "Head of a Woman (Fernande)," executed in 1909, that brought $4.9 million, a record for any Picasso sculpture sold at auction.

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But 15 works in the sale failed to sell, one of them Gustav Klimt's oil, "Farm With Birch Trees," a rare early landscape that had a reserve price of $5 million placed on it by the seller. It brought a top bid of only $4.6 million, and the painting was returned to its owner.

Sotheby's small sale of 38 artworks, 13 of which failed to find a buyer, was the most disappointing of the three auctions, bringing only $33.1 million despite the record price for a Pissarro. That total was below the sale's low estimate of $38 million.

However, it saw a 1918 Henri Matisse still life, "Anenomies in Front of a Black Mirror," bring $4.1 million, and Alberto Giacometti's elongated bronze "Woman of Venice V," sell for $2.8 million. But Aristide Maillol's monumental nude sculpture, "The Air," failed to sell.

Another private collection was dispersed at Phillips' elegant new midtown gallery. The sale included 72 works by 20th century French and German artists that had belonged to the late Nathan Smooke, a Los Angeles industrial real estate tycoon, and his wife, Marion. The sale totaled $86.1 million, above the low estimate of $80.2 million, and only five works failed to sell.

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To the uninitiated this might sound like good news, but not for the auction house.

Phillips reportedly guaranteed the Smooke heirs about $170 million, no matter what the sale actually realized. Guarantees are a way of snagging important collections, and Phillips -- purchased two years ago by the deep-pockets luxury goods firm of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton -- is determined to attract collections that might otherwise have gone to its bigger competitors, Christie's and Sotheby's.

How long LVMH Moet can continue this practice at millions in losses remains to be seen.

The top price at Phillips was $9.9 million for "Suburban House With Washing" by Egon Schiele, well above the low estimate of $8 million. Amedeo Modigliani's portrait of a favorite model, Almaisa, sold for $7.1 million, and Fernand Leger's "The Four Builders Against a Yellow Ground" brought $5.7 million.

One of the most important lots in the sale, a late casting of Edgar Degas' bronze, "Little Dancer at 14," brought no bids at all, although it was estimated to bring as much as $12 million. It was cast in 1922, five years after Degas' death.

A sale of early German works from other collections at Phillips brought a total of $13.8 million, the exact amount of its low pre-sale estimate. "The Reader," a 1911 painting by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, brought the highest price - $3.9 million, well above estimate.

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"German art is very important right now," said Brett Gorvy, a Christie's specialist. "Sellers of German art have seen prices rising higher even than those in 1989 during the boom market before the Persian Gulf War."

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