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Contributor: PR Newswire Europe
Monday, September 02 2019 - 23:18
AsiaNet
Artprice by Art Market: Top 10 Auction Gains in H1 2019
PARIS, Sept. 2, 2019 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ --

The resale of artworks illustrates the financial potential of Art, a potential 
that depends on numerous factors including the artists' notoriety, the 
intrinsic qualities of the works and, of course, the intensity of demand over 
time. While the average return on art investments is approximately 4.6% p.a. 
for an average duration of 13 years, certain works obviously generate much 
better returns, especially in the Contemporary Art segment. 

For thierry Ehrmann, Founder/CEO of Artprice: "the most profitable artists on 
the Art Market are no longer the great Moderns, as in the last century. Major 
buyers have transferred their investments onto the most recognised Contemporary 
artists – onto the great "classics" of our era – artists like Jean-Michel 
Basquiat and Yayoi Kusama who now represent a sort of holy grail for any museum 
or any major collector and who are enjoying ever-growing and ever more 
international demand. The Contemporary Art Market offers opportunities for 
capital gains that were unimaginable 20 years ago."

Contemporary Art Generates the Best Returns

Contemporary creation is today more profitable than Post-War art. There is only 
one Western Post-War artist among the top 10 gains hammered during the first 
six months of 2019: Alexander Calder, with a rare mobile sculpture (Fish), the 
price of which has risen from less than $200,000 to more than $17.5 million 
since the end of the 1980s. Contemporary artists are clearly dominant in the 
rankings. They account for seven of the ten best gains hammered during the 
period and concern works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Daniel Buren, Yayoi Kusama, 
Pierre Soulages and Christopher Wool. Contemporary Art (the overall price index 
of which rose 40% in H1 2019) is the most profitable segment of the Art Market. 
The prices of certain works have been multiplied in range from 30 to more than 
300 times versus their previous auction values.

Long holding 

The volatility of the Contemporary Art market makes it particularly favourable 
for certain types of investment. It allows quick gains (with holding times of 
three to ten years) on some highly popular signatures such as Kaws, George 
Condo and Sean Scully. Of course, rapid turnarounds on art are not risk-free, 
particularly on the younger signatures and it is probably wiser to gamble on 
artists whose work and whose secondary market are both mature.

Moreover, the most profitable resales require a lot of patience with the best 
gains coming from long-term holding periods. The most spectacular price 
increases concerned works sold publicly in the 1980s and 1990s and which are 
now returning to auction. Eight of the ten best gains in our ranking concern 
works that began to be sold publicly more than 20 years ago.

The biggest price increase concerns a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Apex, which 
had not been auctioned for 31 years (it changed owner three times during that 
time, but privately). Apex is a major work, first appearing at auction in June 
1988, two months before the artist's death. Regarded as one of his best 
paintings, it fetched $29,400 in 1988, joining the artist's top 10 results. The 
posthumous growth of his prices had not started yet. It was only three years 
after Basquiat's death that one of his works crossed the $100,000 threshold for 
the first time, blithely tripling its high estimate (Red rabbit, 1982, on 11 
November 1988 at Sotheby's). When it was offered to the public last March, Apex 
fetched $10.8 million, posting an exceptional gain of +36,685% in 31 years.

Remember that Jean-Michel Basquiat is the first and only Contemporary artist 
whose work has crossed the $100 million threshold on the auction market 
(Untitled, 1982, on 18 May 2017 at Sotheby's New York). This pillar of the 
Contemporary Art Market – whose overall price index has risen +1,608% since 
2000 – accounts for three of the top ten most profitable resales since the 
beginning of the year.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

©thierry Ehrmann - courtesy of Organ Museum / Abode of Chaos    
 

Top 10 auction gains in H1 2019

© artprice.com

1. Jean-Michel Basquiat: Apex (1986) +36,685% in 31 years
$10,815,000 on 5 March 2019 - Sotheby's London
$29,400 on 30 June 1988 - Christie's London

2. Daniel Buren: Peinture acrylique blanche (1968) +10,111% in 22 years   
$357,400 on 8 March 2019 - Phillips London   
$3,500 on 26 February 1997 - Libert-Castor Paris 

3. Alexander Calder: Fish (1952) +8,752% in 32 years   
$17,527,000 on 15 May 2019 - Christie's New York  
$198,000 on 4 November 1987 - Sotheby's New York 

4. Fengmian Lin: Wisteria +7,182% in 27 years  
$1,321,700 on 2 April 2019 - Sotheby's Hong Kong  
$18,150 on 1 June 1992 - Sotheby's New York   

5. Yayoi Kusama: Midsummer (1983) +5,840% in 19 years  
$427,700 on 6 March 2019 - Sotheby's London   
$7,200 on 30 June 2000 - Sotheby's London 

6. Fei'an Yu: Parrot (1945) +5,600% in 29 years  
$786,600 on 2 April 2019 - Sotheby's Hong Kong  
$13,800 on 15 November 1990 - Sotheby's Hong Kong

7. Jean-Michel Basquiat: Untitled (1987) +4,617% in 26 years  
$1,321,000 on 5 March 2019 - Sotheby's London   
$28,000 on 25 March 1993 - Christie's London 

8. Pierre Soulages: Painting 130 x 89 cm, 2 March 1961 +3,402% in 32 years 
$3,046,900 on 5 June 2019 - Sotheby's Paris  
$87,000 on 2 July 1987 - Sotheby's London 

9. Christopher Wool: Untitled (1986) +3,324% in 21 years  
$630,000 on 27 June 2019 - Phillips London   
$18,400 on 13 November 1998 - Christie's New York

10. Jean-Michel Basquiat: Soothsayer (1983) +2,924% in 17 years  
$998,000 on 5 March 2019 - Sotheby's London   
$33,000 on 28 June 2002 - Christie's London 

Two living French artists among the most profitable

Two French artists still active today, Pierre Soulages and Daniel Buren, stand 
out thanks to the opening of the International Market. They are among the very 
rare Contemporary French artists who have managed to build a reputation and a 
price structure outside France, especially in New York from where both have 
hammered their personal records ($10.6 million obtained for Soulages in 
November 2018 at Christie's and $2.1 million for Buren last May at the same 
auctioneer). Soulages' abstract style and Buren's minimalist style correspond 
to two trends that are both currently highly sought-after on the American art 
market.

The value added to Daniel Buren's Peinture acrylique blanche sur tissu rayé 
blanc rouge (1968) is particularly noteworthy. The price of this work has 
multiplied 102 times in 22 years – the time it took for demand to consolidate 
abroad. Until recently, most of Buren's high-quality works sold badly in the 
Big Apple... when they were not bought in.

In addition, Peinture acrylique blanche sur tissu rayé blanc rouge was 
auctioned at the right time, while Daniel Buren was installing a monumental 
work on the High Line in New York. The artist has signed the Big Apple by 
floating thousands of flags over New Yorkers, flags bearing the 8.7-cm-wide 
colored stripes that are so characteristic of his work (exhibition En Plein Air 
visible until March 2020). An ideal piece of artistic 'news' to convince New 
Yorkers to buy the French veteran of Minimalism.

As with the stock markets, investments in art require a permanent follow-up 
from collectors of the news concerning the artists in the portfolios. The 
construction, maintenance and inflation of an artist's prices depends 
primarily, as with equity markets, on information. It is information which 
allows us to select the most opportune moment for a resale and the best-suited 
marketplace to ensure the best possible added value.   

About Artprice:

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Founded by thierry Ehrmann (see Who's who certified Biography ) (c) 
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Artprice is the global leader in art price and art index databanks. It has over 
30 million indices and auction results covering more than 700,000 artists. 
Artprice Images® gives unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in 
the world: a library of 126 million images or prints of artworks from the year 
1700 to the present day, along with comments by Artprice's art historians.

Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with information from 6,300 
auctioneers and it publishes a constant flow of art market trends for the 
world's principal news agencies and approximately 7,200 international press 
publications.

For its 4,500,000 members, Artprice gives access to the world's leading 
Standardised Marketplace for buying and selling art. Artprice is preparing its 
blockchain for the Art Market. It is BPI-labelled (scientific national French 
label) Artprice's Global Art Market Annual Report for 2018 published last March 
2019: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2018

Artprice is associated with Artron Group the Chinese leader in the Art Market, 
its solid institutional partner.

Artprice's Contemporary Art Market Annual Report for 2018 - free access at:
https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-contemporary-art-market-report-2018


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SOURCE: Artprice  
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