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Art Prices May Climb After $533 Million London Sales (Update2)

(The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)

By Linda Sandler

June 26 (Bloomberg) -- Prices for works by Andy Warhol, David Hockney and other artists may rise after last week's London auctions raised about 293 million pounds ($533 million), almost double year-earlier totals.

Art dealers track auctions as a guide to setting prices. London dealer Gul Coskun said she'll charge more for Warhol's guns and Marilyn Monroes after last week's results. New York dealer Marc Glimcher of PaceWildenstein sold a Willem de Kooning painting for $15.5 million at Switzerland's Art Basel fair on June 13, reflecting May auction prices for the artist.

``Our retail levels have to go up'' after a successful auction, said Coskun. ``We have to adjust our prices to market and replacement levels.''

Aside from Internet listings, public auctions provide the only visible prices in the art market because most dealers don't publish their charges. While they may ask more or less than auction values, they must deal with customers who track public sales to decide what to pay.

Christie's and Sotheby's Holdings Inc., the world's top auction houses, sold about $6 billion of art and collectibles last year. The total amount of fine art traded annually may be $20 billion to $30 billion, giving dealers a dominant, though unquantified share, according to estimates by data services including Artnet AG.

Art prices may also be affected by the outlook for the U.S. and emerging markets, which have furnished many buyers at auctions and fairs this year.

The S&P 500 last week slipped 0.6 percent to 1244.50, erasing its gain for the year. The index headed for the biggest quarterly slide since an 18 percent tumble in the third quarter of 2002, just before the current bull market began. Latin American equities fell 11 percent in the second quarter as a worldwide decline in emerging markets rippled through the region.

``Make no mistake, if there's a major correction, it will have an impact on art buying,'' said Miami collector Marvin Friedman.

Lauder and Klimt

Some works rarely reach public sales, and their prices are negotiated. Cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder last week agreed to pay $135 million for a Gustav Klimt portrait that was formerly in a Vienna museum, about 4.7 times the artist's auction record.

At art fairs, dealers may charge more than auction values for young artists who are in demand. ``There's a premium for immediate availability,'' said UBS AG's art-banking chief, Karl Schweizer.

The U.K. 's native or adopted artists were winners at last week's auctions. New York art adviser Eykyn Maclean bought David Hockney's ``The Splash'' for a record $5.4 million on June 21 at Sotheby's, whose sale also set new highs for Bridget Riley, Anish Kapoor, Frank Auerbach, Peter Doig and Rachel Whiteread. Christie's records on June 22 included works by Antony Gormley and Sarah Lucas.

``Auction houses are the stock exchange of the art market,'' said Christie's European president, Jussi Pylkkanen.

Hockney's `Splash'

Buyers showed they didn't value all Hockneys equally. ``The Splash,'' a swimming-pool painting once owned by movie mogul David Geffen, reflects one of the U.K. artist's efforts to fix a spray of water in paint after he moved to California in the 1960s. London 's Tate Modern museum owns ``A Bigger Splash.''

At Christie's the next night, a Hockney landscape valued at as much as 700,000 pounds failed to sell. The Hockney's previous owner was Norman Pattiz, chairman of Los Angeles radio programming company Westwood One Inc., according to a Los Angeles County Museum of Art catalog for a 1988 show.

Sotheby's shares rose as the auction week ended to close at $24.27 on Friday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, after falling as low as $22.95 on June 13, off 32 percent from a May 8 high of $33.81.

On June 21, Sotheby's set a 1.1 million pound record for Doig's ``Iron Hill,'' which fetched nearly twice the top estimate. Christie's sold a Doig painting to an absentee bidder near the low estimate before adding its commission on June 22.

Warhol prices moved up a notch. At Sotheby's, the 1981 work ``Guns,'' offered by Warhol collector Irving Blum, raised 321,600 pounds, near its top estimate. ``Four Multicolored Marilyns (Reversal Series)'' fetched 1.4 million pounds. At Christie's, bidding and buying by U.S. dealers and collectors Larry Gagosian, Alberto Mugrabi and Tony Shafrazi buoyed prices for Warhol's ``American Indian'' and other images.

`Marilyn Reversal'

At London dealer Coskun, Warhol's gun canvases were 120,000 pounds to 150,000 pounds -- half or less of the sum fetched at Sotheby's. Prices would rise, she said. ``The same is true for the Marilyn reversal. For example, a single Marilyn now is no less than 400,000 pounds.'' That's based on the Sotheby's price for four images of the late film star.

Did Sotheby's gun picture have extra value because of the seller, who gave Warhol his first gallery show in the 1960s? ``The provenance of Blum gave the image the recognition it needed. Gun canvases have been underpriced,'' Coskun said.

U.S. buyers won 26 percent of Sotheby's contemporary sale, a decrease from 38 percent a year ago. Swiss collectors took 13 percent. The fastest growing group was Asians, with a 17 percent share, up from 2 percent a year earlier, Sotheby's said in an e- mail to Bloomberg.

Sotheby's Sale

U.S. and Russian buyers flocked to Sotheby's June 19 impressionist and modern sale. Americans bought 44 percent of the art, up from 30 percent in June, 2005; Russians took a 14 percent share, an increase from 11 percent, said Sotheby's. U.K. buyers were about 11 percent at both sales.

London 's $533 million impressionist, modern and contemporary auctions were part of a spring sale cycle that exceeded $1.7 billion. New York 's May sales were $900 million, up 30 percent from a year earlier. Art Basel's annual sales exceed $300 million, said director Sam Keller. The U.K. capital's June 2005 sales were $292 million.

`Discerning Market'

Bidders and buyers ranged from dealers Iwan Wirth, Jeffrey Deitch, Helly Nahmad, Jan Krugier, Daniella Luxembourg , Angela Nevill and Doris Ammann to collectors such as London 's Laurence Graff and art advisers Abigail Asher and Citigroup Inc.'s Louise Eliasof. Eykyn Maclean bought Egon Schiele's painting of wilted sunflowers for 10.5 million pounds at Christie's King Street headquarters on June 20 as well as the Hockney at Sotheby's on New Bond Street .

``It's a discerning market that demands recognizable images or immediate commercial appeal,'' said Christopher Eykyn, formerly with Christie's New York .

Sellers included U.S. collector Marvin Schein, who offered more than 16 works, Milwaukee's Marvin and Janet Fishman, Detroit's Booth family, New York's Nelson Blitz, London's Charles Saatchi and Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. A couple of Schein's pictures didn't sell at Sotheby's. Luc Tuymans's ``Maypole,'' previously owned by Saatchi, found no takers at Christie's.

Neck-and-Neck

London-based Christie's, which usually runs neck-and-neck with Sotheby's in its home town, raised about 141.5 million pounds last week, some 20 million pounds short of its top target. Sotheby's, whose main salerooms are in New York , pulled ahead and raised almost 152 million pounds, just 6 million pounds short of its high estimate.

The gathering of artworks by Sotheby's may have been aided by guarantees to sellers of minimum prices, including for Schein's impressionist pictures and 10 contemporary works at its evening sale.

``They moved aggressively to regain market share,'' said Christie's Chief Executive Officer Edward Dolman in an interview after the contemporary sale.

Sotheby's Chief Executive Officer William Ruprecht has said he regards guarantees as ``an opportunity'' to add profit. If a work sells for more than the guaranteed amount, Sotheby's splits the difference with the seller. If it doesn't sell, Sotheby's absorbs the loss.

Demand has outpaced supply, doubling modern-art prices since 1998 and raising contemporary values more than sevenfold since 1985. Yet London has never before sold so much art in a week, and there were casualties. Christie's offered 11 Pablo Picasso works in a night, and three went unsold. A Lucian Freud nude flopped at Sotheby's.

Citigroup's Eliasof said she noticed ``a bored mood'' at all the sales. ``There was no electricity.'' Is that bad news for the art market, after a 10-year bull run?

No, said Sotheby's auctioneer Tobias Meyer. ``It's becoming more like a real market,'' he said. ``It's more like the stock market.''