Distress sales enrich spring art auctions

NEW YORK, May 6 (UPI) -- New York's annual two-week spring art auctions of Impressionist, modern, and contemporary art began Tuesday, reduced in size by the hesitant economy and the recent war in Iraq but enriched in quality by distress sales by troubled corporations and private collectors.

"It's been hard -- even harder than after Sept. 11," said David Norman, director of the Impressionist and modern department at Sotheby's when asked if it had been difficult to obtain consignments of paintings and sculpture for the auction house's sales.

"This time we were working against the unknown, just before a war. Everyone was very nervous."

Sotheby's leads off the sales, followed by Christie's on Wednesday. A third, smaller house -- Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg -- is skipping its usual auction of Impressionist and modern art this spring in favor of a single sale of contemporary art next week, another economizing measure taken since this financially challenged firm was dumped by its former owner, French tycoon Bernard Arnault.

Sales catalogs are slimmer and museum-quality paintings fewer this spring, and the auction house's pre-sale estimates of the value of their offerings are considerably lower than usual so as not to discourage potential bidders. Low estimates on items have been carefully kept low, since they often represent the minimum a seller will accept for a work consigned for sale.

Norman pointed out that a number of artworks coming up on the auction block are from such financially distressed companies as Enron, Vivendi which obtained Seagram's corporate art collection when it purchased the distillery conglomerate, the Japanese oil refining firm of Idemitsu Kosan, and several Korean art galleries. Also selling are such wheeler-dealers as Francois Pinault, the French entrepreneur who owns Christie's, and Charles Saatchi, the British advertising billionaire.

The top lot in the Impressionist sales is Pierre Auguste Renoir's "In the Roses (Mme. Leon Clapisson)," a gorgeous portrait of a Parisian socialite in a blue gown seated on a bench in a garden aflame with red and pink roses. Painted in 1882, the oil has been consigned to Sotheby's by an heiress to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune, and is expected to fetch $20 million to $30 million.

Christie's piece de resistance is a self-portrait with a quizzical expression by Paul Cezanne painted at 55 but looking older. It is estimated to bring between $15 million and $20 million, which would go to reduce the $12 billion indebtedness of its consigner, Idemitsu Kosan. Christie's also is offering an important Edgar Degas sculpture, "Little Dancer at 14," one of a series of bronze casts of this subject adorned with a real tulle tutu.

The Degas is a posthumous casting dated 1922 and therefore less valuable than a casting made during the artist's lifetime, but it still carries an estimate of $8 million to $12 million. It was consigned to Christie's by Francois Pinault, who reportedly bought it at auction only four years ago for $12.3 million and is risking a loss by selling it on the current market.

Other outstanding lots offered by Sotheby's include two Degas pastels in crisp condition being de-accessioned by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in order to raise funds for its purchase program. One of them, the depiction of a dramatically lighted single dancer performing before a stage backdrop, painted between 1885 and 1890, is expected to sell in the $9 million to $12 million range.

The top sculptures at both Christie's and Sotheby's are 1950 bronze castings of Alberto Giacometti's five female figures rising from a rectangular base, the one at Christie's painted by the artist, the one at Sotheby's unpainted. The former is estimated to fetch $8 million to $12 million; the latter $8 million to $10 million.

Sotheby's also has for sale a 1971 posthumous casting of Auguste Rodin's monumental sculpture of French novelist Honore de Balzac, familiar in its first 1898 casting to visitors to the garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It is expected to bring as much as $4 million.

The modern and contemporary art up for sale next week at Sotheby's includes a Jackson Pollock drip painting, "Number 17, 1949" ($5 million to $7 million), Robert Rauschenberg's stage set, "Minutiae," created for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company ($6 million to $8 million), and Andy Warhol's silk screen painting, "Four Foot Flowers," created for his first solo exhibition in 1954 ($2 million to $3 million).

At Christie's, the top lot is Arshile Gorky's 1947 abstraction, "Year After Year," carrying an estimate of $13 million to $15 million although it was last sold at Christie's only 10 years ago for $3.8 million.

Also at Christie's the entertainment conglomerate Vivendi is selling Mark Rothko's "Brown and Blacks and Reds" from 1957 ($6 million to $8 million), and Pinault is selling Rothko's "White and Black on Wine" from 1958 ($8 million to $12 million) and Yves Klein's "Re2," a monochromatic blue painting from 1958 ($3 million to $4 million).

A larger Klein, "Re21," a blue painting from 1960, is being offered by Phillips ($6 million to $8 million) from the collection of Ronald S. Lauder, chairman of the Museum of Modern Art. Cosmetics heir Lauder is putting most of his money these days into German and Austrian and art for his new Manhattan museum, Neue Galerie.