A lot to remember: Andy Warhol, “Self-Portrait,” 1963-4
If you’ve been following the news reports on the evening Impressionist/modern and contemporary sales this week and last at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, you know that the “recovery” of the art market appears to have stalled, along with the rest of the economic recovery. “Tepid,” “far from stellar” and “rather underwhelming” are some of the descriptions from journalists attending the ho-hum sales.
Last night’s contemporary sale at Christie’s did well, however: Achieving a total of $301.68 million (including the buyer’s premium), it was an impressive 99% sold by value, 95% by lot. Only three of the 65 works failed to find buyers.
I sat these sales out, pursuing other stories. But I couldn’t resist tuning in, via the webcast, to the always entertaining Christopher Burge for part of last night’s sale. I’m so glad I did! As the bidding progressed (and didn’t) on Lot 22, I realized I was witnessing a strange kind of history.
About 10 minutes into the bidding, I switched on my camcorder to capture a blurry souvenir of what I knew was turning into the most drawn-out bidding war I had ever witnessed. The James Brown of the sales podium, earning the title, “Hardest Working Auctioneer in Art Business,” also knew this was a strangely momentous occasion, wryly pronouncing this to be “the longest lot in history.” When he said that, there were more teeth yet to pull.
Other Burge-isms: “Let’s speed it up!” “Throw in a big one!” And my favorite: “I can’t just stand here doing nothing!” In its post-sale press release, Christie’s hilariously described this interlude as “riveting.” “Excruciating” was more like it.
There were no fireworks, just exasperating hesitation on the part of the contenders, along with repeated (not always successful) attempts to get Burge to lower the bidding increments. In the end, he managed to extract a final bid of $34.35 million (against a presale estimate of $20-30 million) or $38.44 million with the buyer’s premium—an auction record for a Warhol portrait, which Christopher labored mightily to achieve. It was the high price of the evening.
The Warhol was one of seven lots in the sale carrying a guaranteed minimum price that was fully financed by a third party. (The guarantor, typically a dealer or major collector, has to make good on the amount of the guarantee, if bidding falls short.)
At Christie’s, the third-party guarantor is allowed to bid on the lot in which he has a financial interest. If the lot goes to another bidder for more than the guaranteed price, the guarantor customarily collects a fee based on the amount of the overage. If the guarantor is the winning bidder, his net cost for buying the work is less than it would have been for a disinterested bidder, because he receives a fee for having assumed the risk of being the lot’s guarantor.
One wonders if the guarantor for the Warhol self-portrait could have been carefully (and very slowly) edging up the price to boost the upside over the guarantee for his own financial benefit, before deferring to the unsuspecting phone bidder who ultimately prevailed. I wasn’t in the room, but even if I were, it would probably have been hard to know why the bidding was so agonizingly slow.
In any event, here’s my blurry video of the (in)action on my computer screen, containing two spliced-together excerpts from the Warhol Ordeal: