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DATABANK
Taking the Long View
When looking at how a market segment performs over the long haul, a comparison of similar sectors
can highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each. Here we compare four leading categories: Impressionist
and modern art, contemporary art, American paintings, and Latin American art. For these indices we plotted
auction sales data for the top 500 artists—as judged by total dollar sales—in each of the categories over a
41-year period to get a sense of their returns over the long term. Also included is the number of sales each year
for works by those artists. All segments saw strong growth in this tally of lots beginning in the mid 1980s,
but contemporary art posted the most dramatic increases, nearly quintupling in sales volume between 1985
and 2011. The contemporary index showed the strongest performance over the full run, too, approaching
a 25-fold increase, followed by Impressionist and modern, up about 15-fold, and Latin American art, close on its
heels with a 12-fold increase. American paintings were up about 9-fold over the 41-year run. BY ROMAN KRAEUSSL
INDICES OF MAJOR FINE-ART SECTORS AT AUCTION, 1970–2011
The Impressionist and modern sector took the biggest hit following the Japanese wealth–fueled bubble of the late 1980s and just reached its 1990 peak again in 2007.
By comparison, all categories have largely recovered from the slump of 2009, with contemporary art showing the most dramatic resurgence. The less volatile American
paintings market, which covers the 17th through 19th centuries along with some 20th-century artists, took off modestly in the early 2000s and has been slowly recovering
since the bubble-burst of 2008–09. Latin American art, a market that was virtually created in the 1980s, hit the rocks in the 1990s but has been on an upswing as well.
INDEX
1400
1200
INDEX
NUMBER OF SALES
1600
3000
Impressionist and
modern art
2500
3000
Contemporary art
2500
2000
2000
2000
1000
1500
800
1500
1500
1000
600
1000
1000
400
500
200
0
0
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
INDEX
2000
2005
500
500
0
2010
0
1970
700
Latin American art
600
1000
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
INDEX
NUMBER OF SALES
1400
1200
NUMBER OF SALES
2500
500
800
400
600
300
400
200
200
100
2000
2005
2010
NUMBER OF SALES
1200
1000
900
American paintings
1000
800
700
800
600
600
500
0
0
1970
07 AA_Databank.indd 106
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
400
400
300
200
200
100
0
0
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
5/25/12 10:28:13 AM
TOP 10 ARTISTS BY SEGMENT, 1970–2011
A look at the top artists in each segment confirms some assumptions but also yields surprises. Picasso and Warhol dominate the heavy-hitting Impressionist
and modern and contemporary categories. But among American painters, the late 19th-century Impressionist Childe Hassam comes out on top, rather than
the more modern artists who have led recent sales. In both American paintings and Impressionist and modern art, the names at the top of the list have
remained steady over the past 41 years; in the other categories, different decades have produced different favorites. The prevalence of Venezuelan painters
on the Latin American art list can be chalked up to historic wealth patterns; as the number of high-net-worth individuals in other countries rises, new
names will reflect those buyers’ desire to invest in their cultural heritage. There are but two women, Georgia O’Keeffe and Mary Cassatt, on any of the lists.
RANK
NAME
NATIONALITY
TOTAL SALES
TURNOVER
IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN ART
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Pablo Picasso
Claude Monet
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Henri Matisse
Paul Cézanne
Amedeo Modigliani
Vincent van Gogh
Fernand Léger
Marc Chagall
Camille Pissarro
Spanish
French
French
French
French
Italian
Dutch
French
Russian
French
$3,218,550,349
$2,036,119,859
$1,560,664,498
$883,563,964
$827,558,140
$761,534,321
$708,050,899
$690,957,936
$685,719,486
$592,407,329
CONTEMPORARY ART
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Andy Warhol
Francis Bacon
Mark Rothko
Gerhard Richter
Willem de Kooning
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Roy Lichtenstein
Jean Dubuffet
Lucio Fontana
Damien Hirst
American
British
American
German
American
American
American
French
Italian
British
$1,853,652,210
$855,113,459
$669,250,911
$638,935,431
$576,428,053
$465,798,181
$460,920,742
$323,824,674
$293,880,844
$280,973,218
LATIN AMERICAN ART
1
2
3
4
FROM TOP: SOTHEBY’S; PHILLIPS DE PURY & COMPANY; TWO IMAGES, CHRISTIE’S
5
6
7
8
9
10
Wifredo Lam
Luis Alfredo López Méndez
Joaquin Torres-García
Marcos Castillo
Tomas Golding
Roberto Matta
Rufino Tamayo
Francisco Narvaez
Cuban
Venezuelan
Uruguayan
Venezuelan
Venezuelan
Chilean
Mexican
Venezuelan
$178,800,267
$171,896,321
$158,003,296
$140,586,278
$129,123,403
$128,822,738
$127,327,557
$121,603,269
Armando Barrios
Alirio Rodriguez
Venezuelan
Venezuelan
$99,876,194
$98,211,877
AMERICAN PAINTINGS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
ARTINFO.COM
07 AA_Databank.indd 107
Childe Hassam
John Singer Sargent
Norman Rockwell
Georgia O’Keeffe
Albert Bierstadt
Thomas Moran
Mary Cassatt
George Bellows
Edward Hopper
Marsden Hartley
|
American
American
American
American
American
American
American
American
American
American
$132,091,109
$129,530,891
$99,684,858
$89,082,000
$85,225,337
$73,707,462
$66,341,940
$60,038,150
$58,722,338
$56,550,976
107
Recent sales of market
leaders include, from
top, Picasso’s L’Aubade,
1967, which fetched
$23,042,500 against an
estimate of $18 million to
$25 million at Sotheby’s
New York on November 2,
2011; an especially
colorful 1973 Mao by Andy
Warhol, which brought
$10,386,500 (est. $9–12
million) in New York at
Phillips de Pury & Company
on May 10 of this year;
Joaquín Torres-García’s
Naturaleza muerta, from
1947, which earned
$86,500, surpassing the
$50,000–to–$70,000
estimate on May 22 at
Christie’s New York; and
Norman Rockwell’s oil-oncanvas Dreams of Long
Ago, 1927, which sold
at the same house on
May 16 for $2,322,500, in
line with its estimate
of $2 million to $3 million.
JULY/AUGUST 2012 ART+AUCTION
5/25/12 10:29:27 AM