With a Magritte painting estimated to sell for nearly US$100 million, drawings by pop artist Keith Haring and a rather gnarly banana, New York’s auction houses will try to shake up a stale market this week.
The sale of one of Magritte’s Empire of Light (L’Empire des Lumieres) paintings, which will go under the hammer at Christie’s evening sale on November 19, will surely be one of the high points of the autumn season, which will see hundreds of works sold – and hundreds of millions of dollars spent.
The seminal 1954 work is one of a series of paintings from the Surrealist master depicting the interplay of shadow and light. Its estimated price is US$95 million, which would easily shatter the previous record for a Magritte, £59.4 million (US$75 million), achieved in 2022.
Christie’s is hoping that the Magritte, and a celebrated 1964 painting of a petrol station by the now 86-year-old American pop artist Ed Ruscha, can reinvigorate an art market that has slowed since 2023.
The auction house – which is controlled by Artemis, the investment holding company owned by France’s Pinault family – said sales totalled US$2.1 billion in the first half of 2024.
That is down for the second straight year, after a peak of US$4.1 billion in 2022, as the world emerged from the coronavirus pandemic.
“The current market correction, which began in 2023 with global geopolitical unrest, high inflation and interest rates affecting collectors, has spilled into 2024,” Bank of America said in a note.
“Less marquee estate property in the May sales potentially also dampened bidders’ confidence and enthusiasm.”
Max Carter, vice-chairman for 20th- and 21st-century art at Christie’s, said the market is very much defined by supply more than demand – particularly now.
“And this season, we happen to have all of the great estate material, all the great discretionary sales, and we feel very optimistic,” he added.
Sotheby’s is hoping to make a tidy profit from the sale of private collections, like that of Sydell Miller, a beauty industry mogul who died this year and whose Florida home reputedly looked like a museum.
The auction house is hoping the collection will generate US$170 million to US$205 million in sales, including one of Claude Monet’s celebrated Water Lilies (Nympheas) paintings, which is expected to rake in more than US$60 million alone.
Sotheby’s, owned by French-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, is also selling a series of 31 crayon drawings done by Haring in the 1980s in blank advertising spaces in the New York subway system.
Another of the week’s highlights will be a fresh banana taped to a wall, a provocative work by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.
The debut of Comedian at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019 sparked controversy. This is its third iteration – the first two were eaten, according to Sotheby’s website.
This time, the auction house believes the work, a commentary on what qualifies as art, could go for US$1 million to US$1.5 million. The buyer will receive a certificate of authenticity and instructions on how to replace the fruit when it goes bad.
The auction action will move to Hong Kong in the week after the New York sales, with sales taking place at Bonhams, Christie’s, Phillips and Sotheby’s.
Additional reporting by staff reporter.
