The Auction Season

The following are my thoughts on the current art market (as a former auction house insider)....it was to be part of an article that was going to be published in Magenta's new online magazine,  publication of the article was put on hold til the end of the year do to the highly publicized events in August and September surrounding Ritchies.....it comprised various opinions on the economic downturn of the art market....thought it would be fitting as the auction season gets under way.......

From my point of view the recent economic downturn has had an interesting affect on the auction market, as can be seen by savvy buyers being more selective when raising their paddles. Buyers are no longer buying work by unknown artists, they want blue chip Canadian artists such as Jean-Paul Riopelle, Emily Carr, Lawren Harris and Frederick Varley to name a few.  The new mantra is “Good quality art sells and sells well” this can be defined by several key factors:

• Is the work fresh to the market? Has work been shopped around among dealers or offered at auction before? Has it remained in the same collection for a number of years?

• What is the condition? Has there been any restorations, in-painting or alterations to the canvas? Is it in the same condition as it left the artists studio?

• Is it characteristic of the artist’s style? Does the work fall nicely into the artist’s oeuvre? Can be placed within the artist’s history?

• What is it Provenance? When was it created? How did it come into possession of the seller? Has it been documented in a catalogue raisonne?

These are the main criteria that buyers were asking me before an auction. Gone are the days of buying on a whim or because they liked it. The economic uncertainty of the last year has caused people to look auctions as the new stock market.