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Q1: Auction vs commercial galleries. What are the key differences for you as a buyer? E.g. transparency, security etc.Is one avenue better than the other? Why?                                               

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Q1: Auction vs commercial galleries. What are the key differences for you as a buyer? E.g. transparency, security etc.Is one avenue better than the other? Why?                                               

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Q2:What makes a particular work of art valuable? 

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Q2:What makes a particular work of art valuable? 

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Q3: “Art buying at the most expensive end is a game played by the super-rich with publicity and cultural distinction as the prize.” Do you agree? Why/Why not?

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Q3: “Art buying at the most expensive end is a game played by the super-rich with publicity and cultural distinction as the prize.” Do you agree? Why/Why not?

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Q4: A STUFFED SHARK IS NOT ART? “85 percent of new contemporary art is bad.” (Jerry Saltz of the Village Voice in Thompson, p.6) Do you agree? Why/Why not?

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Q4: A STUFFED SHARK IS NOT ART? “85 percent of new contemporary art is bad.” (Jerry Saltz of the Village Voice in Thompson, p.6) Do you agree? Why/Why not?

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REFER TO case study example: 2005 sale Damian Hirst’s 2 ton 15 foot stuffed tiger shark

'Art of making money: How does a dead fish sell for £12m and who's writing all the cheques?'
Independent, Friday 11 January 2008

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Green, wrinkled, and twelve million

One problem for the agent trying to sell the stuffed shark was the $12m asking price. Another was that it weighed just over two tons and was not going to be easy to carry home. The 15ft tiger shark "sculpture" was mounted in a giant glass vitrine and creatively named The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. It had been caught in 1991 in Australia and prepared and mounted in England by technicians working under the direction of the artist Damien Hirst.

Another concern was that, while the shark was certainly a novel artistic concept, many in the art world were uncertain as to whether it qualified as art. The question was important because $12m represented more money than had ever been paid for a work by a living artist, other than Jasper Johns - more than for a Gerhard Richter, a Robert Rauschenberg or a Lucian Freud.

Why would anyone even consider paying this much money for the shark?

Part of the answer is that in the world of contemporary art, branding can substitute for critical judgement, and lots of branding was involved here. The seller was Charles Saatchi, an advertising magnate and art collector, who 14 years earlier had commissioned Hirst to produce the work for £50,000. At the time, that sum was considered so ridiculous that The Sun heralded the transaction with the headline: "50,000 For Fish Without Chips". But Hirst intended the figure to be an "outrageous" price, set as much for the publicity it would attract as for the monetary return.

The agent selling the shark was New York-based Larry Gagosian, the world's most famous art dealer. One buyer known to be pursuing the shark was Sir Nicholas Serota, the director of London's Tate galleries, who had a very constrained budget to work with. Four collectors with much greater financial means had shown moderate interest. The most promising was the American Steve Cohen, a very rich Connecticut hedge-fund executive.

Hirst, Saatchi, Gagosian, Tate, Serota and Cohen represented more art-world branding than is almost ever found in one place. Saatchi's ownership and display of the shark had become a symbol for newspaper writers of the shock art being produced by the group known as the Young British Artists, the YBAs. Put the branding and the publicity together and the shark must be art, and the price must not be unreasonable.

There was another concern, serious enough that, with any other purchase, it might have deterred buyers. The shark had deteriorated dramatically since it was first unveiled at Saatchi's private gallery in London in 1992. Because the techniques used to preserve it had been inadequate, the original had decomposed until its skin became heavily wrinkled and turned a pale green, a fin had fallen off, and the formaldehyde solution in the tank had turned murky.

The intended illusion had been of a tiger shark swimming towards the viewer through the white space of the gallery, hunting for dinner. The illusion now was described as entering Norman Bates's fruit cellar and finding Mother embalmed in her chair. Curators at the Saatchi Gallery tried adding bleach to the formaldehyde, but this only hastened the decay. In 1993, the curators gave up and had the shark skinned. The skin was then stretched over a weighted fibreglass mould. The shark was still greenish, still wrinkled.

Damien Hirst had not actually caught the now-decaying shark. He'd made "shark wanted" telephone calls to post offices on the Australian coast, which put up posters giving his London number. He'd paid £6,000 for the shark: £4,000 to catch it and £2,000 to pack it in ice and ship it to London.

There was now the question of whether Hirst could replace this rotting shark simply by purchasing and stuffing a new one. Many art historians would argue that if refurbished or replaced, the shark became a different artwork. If you overpainted a Renoir, it would not be the same work. But if the shark was a conceptual piece, would catching an equally fierce shark and replacing the original using the same name be acceptable? Dealer Larry Gagosian drew a weak analogy to American installation artist Dan Flavin, who works with fluorescent light tubes. If a tube on a Flavin sculpture burns out, you replace it.

Charles Saatchi, when asked if refurbishing the shark would rob it of its meaning as art, responded: "Completely." So what is more important - the original artwork or the artist's intention?

Nicholas Serota offered Gagosian $2m on behalf of Tate Modern, but it was turned down. Gagosian continued his sales calls. When alerted that Saatchi intended to sell soon, Cohen agreed to buy. Some journalists later expressed doubt as to whether the selling price for Physical Impossibility actually was $12m. Several New York media reported that the only other firm offer aside from that made by Tate Modern came from Cohen, and that the actual selling price was $8m. New York magazine reported $13m. But the $12m figure was the most widely cited, it produced extensive publicity, and the parties agreed not to discuss the amount.

Branded auctions

Half an hour before an evening auction at Christie's or Sotheby's, in London or New York, black limousines sit two deep by the kerb outside the auction house, engines idling like getaway cars in a modern Mafia movie. Many who arrive by car will not register for a paddle - a numbered object the bidder shows to register a bid. They are there because evening art auctions are a place to be seen.

Inside the auction house's entrance is a hall packed with high-profile dealers, rich collectors and their advisers. The space is full of "wish I could remember the name" celebrities, with lots of real or faked greeting and air-kissing.

Acquaintances smile and extend their arms and mouth: "What work are you here for?"

The protocol in the entry hall before an auction is to air-kiss, right cheek then left cheek; if male to male, shake hands, grasp just above the other's elbow with the free hand and respond: "It's good to see you looking so well," and "I'm here for the Rothko," (or whatever work is on the catalogue cover, or is most expensive - no one will enquire further). Nobody asks names; very often they are relieved to escape without admitting they do not remember.

At the front of the auction room is a large television screen that projects each bid simultaneously in pounds, US dollars, euros, Swiss francs, Hong Kong dollars and Japanese yen. In May 2007, Sotheby's added Russian roubles to the conversion. Every bidder is perfectly competent to calculate their bidding position in the auction currency; the conversion is there to remind everyone what an international event this is.

Christie's and Sotheby's contemporary sales take place on successive evenings, the auction houses alternating which goes first. This is nominally for the convenience of foreign bidders, since it doubles the number of works available on one visit to London or New York. There is also psychology involved. An uncertain bidder is doubly persuaded; two auction houses and two different sets of specialists say that contemporary art is desirable, prestigious and a good investment. The unsuccessful bidder at the first auction may be a more determined bidder at the second.In May 2007, the New York auction at Sotheby's came first, on a Tuesday evening, with sales of 65 works totalling $255m (including the premium paid to the auction house by purchasers). Forty-one of the works sold for over $1m each. The high point of the sale was Mark Rothko's painting White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose), which brought a world record price for the artist and for any post-war or contemporary work at auction. The Rothko was owned by David Rockefeller, the 91-year-old retired chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, chairman emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art, and a well-known philanthropist. He had owned the painting since 1960, when he'd purchased it for $8,500 from Eliza Bliss Parkinson, the niece of Lillie Bliss, one of the three founders of MoMA.

Sotheby's had needed a feature work for their spring 2007 New York contemporary auction and feared Christie's would jump in with a pre-emptive offer. Auctioneer Tobias Meyer, famous for offering huge guaranteed prices for art he thinks will be successful, was reported by The New York Times to have guaranteed Rockefeller a price of $46m, even if the painting sold for less.

To put Sotheby's guarantee price of $46m in perspective, it was twice the previous auction record for a Rothko - $22.4m, achieved at Christie's in 2005. Instead of listing an estimate for the work, the catalogue stated "Refer Department", which means "call us and we'll tell you what we think". The amount quoted to those who called Sotheby's started at $40m, and had crept up to $48m by the day of the auction.

On the assumption that Rockefeller's seller's commission was waived and that Sotheby's incurred $600,000 in promotion costs, the auction house could make a profit only if the painting sold for over $47m. Less, and it would lose money.

During the auction, Tobias Meyer introduced Lot 31, White Center, with the words "And now..." This was followed by a long pause. The audience chuckled. Meyer spelled out the painting's full title and moneyed history, "From the collection of David and Peggy Rockefeller" - a lengthy introduction virtually never heard in evening auctions, where lots are normally introduced only by their number and the artist's name. David Rockefeller observed the proceedings from a private box.

The opening bid was $28m, $6m above the auction record for a Rothko. Six bidders pursued it in $1m bidding increments. Two and a half minutes later, Meyer hammered down White Center for $72.8m. Who bought it? One dealer identified a bearded Russian collector in a box adjacent to that occupied by Rockefeller. Sotheby's said it was sold over the phone to a client of Roberta Louckx, a Russian-speaking auction house specialist - perhaps the same bearded gentleman. The painting produced a profit of just over $16m for Sotheby's, including their share of the amount achieved above the guarantee price.

Sotheby's specialists had high hopes that, driven by the price paid for the Rothko, the total of $255m attained at their New York spring contemporary sale would be higher than that achieved at Christie's the next day. It was not to be. Twenty-four hours later, having auctioned an Andy Warhol silkscreen for $71.7m and set auction records for 26 artists, Christie's totalled a record $385m in sales. This obliterated Sotheby's short-lived record, and brought the total for the two evening sales to $640m.

What sort of work was included in two auctions totalling almost two-thirds of a billion dollars? The Rothko is museum-class. A less traditional example was Jim Hodges' No-One Ever Leaves, a leather jacket tossed in a corner. The title reflects the meaning of the work. It sold for $690,000, more than double the artist's previous auction record, and almost certainly a world record for any leather jacket.

Among other offerings from branded artists was a Jeff Koons vacuum cleaner mounted in a Plexiglas case, with fluorescent tubes on either side. Titled New Hoover, Deluxe Shampoo Polisher, it sold for $2.16m. The auction catalogue entry described it as "addressing social class and gender roles as well as consumerism". Superior in artistic merit, and a wonderful example of contemporary portraiture, was Francis Bacon's Study from Innocent X. An unidentified buyer set an auction record for Bacon at $52.7m, double the previous record of $27.6m.

When thinking about the potential prices for the works offered at the two auctions, one should remember that the key part of the word contemporary is "temporary". Look at a listing of major galleries from a 10-year-old art magazine like Frieze, and you will note that half no longer exist. Inspect 10-year-old evening sale catalogues from Christie's or Sotheby's and you'll find that half the artists are no longer being offered in evening sales.

Ten years from now, will there be collectors around willing to pay even more for works like Jim Hodges' leather jacket? If not - and many people think "not" is the likely outcome - and if these are not decorative objects that you might want to display in your home, why is some of the individual work in the evening auctions worth so much?

Branded dealers

The branded art gallery is interesting. It is often designed to be a not-very-friendly place for those who are "just looking", and visitors are not comfortable. Part of the psychology of the contemporary gallery is its decor. It is often windowless, and composed of rooms with flat-white walls. This featureless environment is meant to reinforce the idea that what is being viewed is "art", and that galleries are elitist.

Another fear is that if you look somewhat affluent and interested, the dealer may follow you around, speaking a form of dealer-code where cutting-edge means radical, challenging means don't even try to understand it, and museum-quality means if you have to ask, you can't afford it. The dealer may tell you what you should like and why: "Isn't it great? You can see how talented this artist is." Or they volunteer: "Charles Saatchi liked this." Did he like it enough to take it home? Few collectors think they have the self-confidence to respond: "Actually, your artist does disturbing work and I, like Mr Saatchi, would never want that painting anywhere near me."

The psychological barrier is more common to the branded, superstar gallery. Mainstream galleries and others lower on the dealer pyramid tend to be less psychologically daunting. A fascinating part of my research was the chance to spend time with dealers in the very top echelon. Some - Tim Marlow of White Cube, or Harry Blain of Haunch of Venison - were fun to talk to, smart, customer-aware and marketing-savvy. Others, such as Larry Gagosian, are unquestionably great marketers, but had a whole lot less interest in spending time with a non-customer like me.

The world of dealers includes men and women of the highest integrity, many of whom are experts on the work of the artists they sell, on the same level as museum curators or university professors. Examples include Julian Agnew and Anthony d'Offay with the Camden Town Group; Zurich dealer Thomas Ammann and New York dealer Ron Feldman on the work of Andy Warhol; Otto and Jane Kallir on Egon Schiele; and Tim Marlow and Harry Blain, mentioned above.

Anyone can purchase a business licence and become a dealer. There is no required background, no test, no certification. Superstar art dealers achieve that status by coming to the table not with graduate business or art degrees, although some have them. Rather, they have lots of operating capital, sometimes good contacts, judgement in choosing marketable artists, aggression in approaching collectors, and savvy in promoting their brand. And they have charm, although charm takes many forms. In many cases, luck plays a role.

It is the branded dealer who manages the long-term career of a mature artist, placing work with collectors, taking it to art fairs, placing it with dealers in other countries, working with museums. These dealers are the gatekeepers who permit artists access to serious collectors. They represent the established artist whose work brings newsworthy prices at auction. Being with a branded dealer allows the artist to hang out with other artists at the top of the food chain. Artists are very status conscious. Until artists get such representation, they don't often get to hang out.

The branded dealer undertakes a range of marketing activities that include public relations, advertising, exhibitions and loans. Most marketing is not intended to produce immediate sales, but rather to build the dealer brand and obtain coverage for the artist in art publications. Marketing starts with public relations: private dinners to introduce customers and art critics to new artists; brunches and cocktail parties at the opening of shows. That dealers sell art is implied in these roles, but never openly. The higher the dealer's status, the less the gallery acts like a commercial enterprise, and the less it looks like a commercial space. The superstar branded dealer's space resembles a museum, and never displays prices.

For a hot artist, the dealer's waiting list for their work is never first come, first to purchase. Gagosian or White Cube do not sell a painting by a hot artist; they "place" it. They then circulate information on which museum or collector has demonstrated faith in the artist by acquiring. Both formal and informal agreements between dealers and artists allow the dealer to discount "where it is worthwhile to place the art in an important collection". Museums demand and get even larger discounts.

A new buyer with no track record at the dealer has little chance of being high on the list to purchase a hot artist. Actually, this new buyer has little chance of even seeing the hot paintings, which will be kept in a small private room. What is hung in public areas is available for purchase but of lesser significance.

Art fairs, the final frontier

Fairs such as Art Basel are industry trade shows where dealers come together for several days to offer specialised works. The work offered at the best contemporary fairs equals in quality and quantity that offered by auction houses in an entire selling season. In their ongoing battle against Christie's and Sotheby's branding, money and private dealing, art dealers needed a slingshot to combat Goliath. The weapon they found was not mergers or blockbuster gallery shows, but branded, heavily marketed art fairs. The start of the 21st century was also the beginning of the decade of the art fair.

Today, there are four international fairs whose branding is such that they add provenance and value to contemporary art. They are to art what Cannes is to movie festivals. One is TEFAF, the European Fine Art Foundation fair, held each March and known as "Maastricht". Another is Art Basel, which every June draws collectors, curators and dealers to the Swiss city. A third is the spin-off Art Basel Miami Beach, which is held each December and has achieved fame for its blend of art, money and fashion. A fourth, the most recent addition, is London's Frieze, held each October.

These attract consignments that might have gone to evening sales at Christie's or Sotheby's. They feature the superstar dealers who come because the best fairs draw the best collectors. The collectors visit because superstar dealers are showing. It is what economists call a virtuous circle or network effect; it leads to a self-perpetuating oligopoly among a few top fairs. Each of the four fairs attracts the same collection of dealers, art advisers, curators, museum directors and artists, along with the accompanying public relations people and journalists, all asking each other which artist and work is hot.

Fairs represent a culture change in art-buying. They replace quiet discussions held in the gallery with an experience akin to the shopping mall, blending art, fashion and parties in one place. Collectors become shoppers who acquire impulsively, usually purchasing only one work by an artist. They may never visit the gallery of the dealer from whom they buy at a fair. With each fair, collectors become more accustomed to purchasing art in a shopping-mall setting.

Fairs offer collectors a high level of comfort. Just as the presence of underbidders reassures an auction bidder that he is not bidding foolishly, the sheer number of people and "sold" stickers at a fair alleviates the collector's uncertainty.

The psychology at a fair is referred to as herding: when a buyer does not have sufficient information to make a reasoned decision, reassurance comes from mimicking the behaviour of the herd.

Dealers reap great publicity if they handle their appearance at a fair properly. The downside for the dealer is that attending fairs is time-consuming and expensive. A dealer who goes to five fairs a year - the top four plus one in their home city - will spend seven or eight weeks away from the gallery, including travel, set-up and take-down time. The month before a major fair consists of a phone and internet-based pre-fair, during which dealers contact collectors and collectors check in with dealers. Five fairs cost the dealer £200,000 to £300,000, sometimes more - often more than the rent on their home gallery. But dealers queue to take part, because other dealers do.

Opening night at fairs is by invitation only, to dealers, press, and selected major buyers and agents. Half the most important works will sell in the first hour, half of those in the first 15 minutes. Buyers race from booth to booth, committing to a purchase or asking for a "hold" - and the dealer may say: "Ten minutes only, and give me your mobile number." There is none of the gallery approach of: "I will come back and look on the weekend," or "Can I hang it in my home for 30 days?'".

Pricing contemporary art

The starting point in setting a price for the work of a new artist is the dealer's reputation. For a mainstream gallery, and for an oil painting on canvas by an artist with no gallery history, £3,000-£6,000 ($5,400-£10,800) is about right. This is high enough to convey the status of the gallery and not cast doubt on the work or the artist, but low enough that if the work is promising, it will sell. If the first show sells out quickly, the dealer will say the pricing was correct.

The artist may be underwhelmed, because even selling out one show a year at new-artist prices means she is still living below the poverty line. She is told to view today's low prices as an investment in her artistic future. She also learns that in the primary-art market, price creates value and buyer satisfaction rather than reflecting it. This is what economists call the Veblen effect: the satisfaction derived by the buyer comes from the art, but also from the list price or conspicuous price paid for it. If the real price reflects a discount the satisfaction is greater, because friends assume you paid the higher list price.

The same principle holds with a designer handbag or diamond engagement ring. The higher the perceived price, the more valuable the object is seen to be and the greater the buyer satisfaction.

As an artist becomes better known, the price of her work is based on reputation and history. If the artist's first show sold out at £4,000, work in the second show might be priced at £6,000, and in a third at £10,000-£12,000. Successive shows will come 18 to 24 months apart. Publications, exhibitions or other forms of recognition for the artist produce faster price escalation.

Because the initial price reflects the dealer's reputation, a superstar dealer multiplies each price level by a factor of three or four, with larger increments. If a mainstream dealer charges £4,000 for a modestly sized work in an artist's first show, Gagosian's gallery might charge £12,000-£15,000 for work of comparable size and quality. Gagosian's reputation for showing promising artists makes work from that gallery more valuable. On resale the Gagosian provenance will bring a higher price.

It is always considered better to sell out a show than to achieve maximum prices for a few works. The dealer must never reduce an artist's list price. Never. Each successive show must be priced higher than the last. In an art world where the illusion of success is everything, a price decrease for an artist would signal that she was out of favour. Demand for her work would fall. With a second price decrease, demand might disappear.

Even when an art market collapses, galleries generally do not drop prices for their own artists. After the 1990 crash, the New York dealer Leo Castelli said that under no circumstances would his list prices be lowered. However, his artists were told that it would be necessary to offer more generous discounts to museums and collectors. Discounts permit dealers to maintain high list prices as a sign of an artist's success, while generating sales and gaining collectors' gratitude.

Rather than be forced to lower list prices, the dealer will almost always drop an artist. Prices can restart at a lower level if the artist finds representation at a new gallery, which doesn't have to worry about betraying former buyers.

Buying art

For the novice collector, there is a ritual to be performed before gaining a place in the artist queue. The gallery wants your CV, a statement of what you will do with the art, and your pledge to be patient for a year until a painting might become available. Buying has nothing to do with offering to pay full price; you might still get a discount. It is not unlike a woman wanting to purchase a Hermès Birkin bag being asked what sort of social events she attends, before being assigned an appropriate place in the Birkin queue.

Waiting lists serve the function of getting art to the right people, and trying to control what happens to the art after it has been purchased - in particular, trying to ensure that it will not be flipped at auction. Working with an art adviser may help the collector move up the list, because keeping the adviser happy may produce future referrals for the gallery. An adviser may also have a negative influence, especially if he demands an additional commission from the gallery without telling the collector he is doing so.

Many "waiting lists" reflect gallery hype - a more sophisticated form of putting red "sold" dots on work that has not actually sold. Gallery owners are happy to announce there is a waiting list, but not how many collectors might be on it (or who they are). Some lists are just for "first right to view", and some names on the list represent people who simply want to look like they are players. Lists for artists such as Mehretu, John Currin, Cecily Brown, Damien Hirst and Matthias Weischer are certainly genuine, "I will buy sight unseen when a work becomes available". Some lists arise because of the very limited production of market-savvy artists. When Charles Saatchi acted as patron to Jenny Saville early in her career, he reportedly limited her production-for-sale to six paintings per year. In selling out her 1999 show at Gagosian, Saville ended up with a waiting list of two dozen names, potentially four years of artistic output.

Art critics

Critics are closely associated with the world of artists, dealers and art fairs, and might be expected to be major art-world players. They are not. Dealers, auction house specialists and collectors insist that critics have little influence on the contemporary art world - not on artists' success, and certainly not on prices. Why should critics have so little clout, and what role do they play?

Some art journalists have a background in art history, or are working artists. Critics may be professors, museum curators, former artists, or spouses of artists. While journalists try to remain at arm's length from the art community, critics are often personally involved with the artists they write about. Critics say their role is to explain the artist's work - and without personal contact, how could they understand its context and meaning?

You might think that either kind of journalist could make or break the career of an artist. Make, never; break, only rarely. Jerry Saltz, senior art critic of New York's Village Voice and three times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, states it nicely: "At no time in the last 50 years has what an art critic writes had less of an effect on the market than now. I can write that work is bad and it has little-to-no effect, and I can write it is good and the same thing will happen. Ditto if I don't write about it at all."

So do critics or auction prices best predict the long-term importance of an artist's work? The answer, as regards modern art, is that the market is a much better predictor than the critic. There are several good studies by Galenson, which rank artists by their single highest-priced work. The highest prices go to great artists such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Gerhard Richter, none of whom received uniformly favourable critical reviews for their early work.

End game

Where are the contemporary art market and its runaway prices going? The answer to this question is still open, although all trends are unfavourable to dealers.

Art prices are propelled by what is known in economics as a ratchet effect. A ratchet turns in only one direction, and then locks in place. A price ratchet means that prices are sticky in a downward direction but free to move up. The ratchet concept is easily understood when applied to labour markets - think of what would happen if the board of directors of every art museum required that their chief executive's pay level be in the top quarter of his peer group.

If the ratchet, perceived scarcity and too much money consistently push prices up, is the entire contemporary art market just a bubble? Art dealers and auction specialists never use the word crash, and hate the word bubble. The immutable rule in a buoyant art market is that the participants suspend all doubt. The art market is simply referred to as being in an extended boom period. Art writer Marc Spiegler compares this approach to teenagers having unprotected sex in the belief that they can never get pregnant.

Bubble or not, every auction specialist warns of a market correction. The question is how hard the landing will be: whether the bubble will burst like a birthday balloon, or just lose a little air and become flabby, like a discarded balloon a month after the party.

A greater danger than economic reversal may be a rejection of the practice of emulating popular taste that underlies contemporary art buying. What happens then if group cultural intelligence and connoisseurship go into reverse, and the market realises all at once that Jim Hodges' No-One Ever Leaves, the crumpled leather jacket in the corner of the gallery, might not actually be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars - or even thousands? Is it all a deck of cards that will come crashing down when lots of collectors try to dump work because a few others have?

Extracted from The $12 Million Stuffed Shark by Don Thompson (£14.99), which is published by Aurum on 24 January. To order a copy for the special price of £13.49 (free P&P) call Independent Books Direct on 0870 079 8897 or visit www.independentbooksdirect.co.uk

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Art of making money: How does a dead fish sell for £12m and who's

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By what alchemy does a dead fish sell for $12m? How can a discarded leather jacket be worth $690,000? And who's writing the cheques? Don Thompson spent a year trawling the murky waters of the contemporary art market to find out

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Guarantees and Irrevocable Bids: The Fine Art Market's Magic Tools?

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Guarantees and Irrevocable Bids: The Fine Art Market's Magic Tools?

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Pi-ex

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The Collection of A. Alfred Taubman: Masterworks

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The Collection of A. Alfred Taubman: Masterworks

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Sotheby's, 04 NOVEMBER 2015 | 7:00 PM EST | NEW YORK

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The Collection of A. Alfred Taubman: Masterworks

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The Collection of A. Alfred Taubman Masterworks - View AUCTION DETAILS, bid, buy and collect the various prints and artworks at Sothebys Art Auction H...

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The New York Times, CAROL VOGEL and RALPH BLUMENTHALSEPT. 18, 2002

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Rebuked by a federal judge for failing to show remorse, A. Alfred Taubman, the principal owner and former chairman of Sotheby's, was sentenced yesterday to a year and a day in prison and fined $7.5 million for leading a six-year price-fixing scheme with its rival Christie's that swindled auction house customers out of more than $100 million.

With the usual time off for good behavior, Mr. Taubman, 78, would serve about 10 months. Under a little-known provision, he was also ordered to pay for his incarceration, a cost a federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman said was at least $21,601 a year.

The judge, George B. Daniels of Federal District Court in Manhattan, first sentenced Mr. Taubman to one year in prison but then agreed to a request by his lawyers to add a day to make him eligible for a 15 percent reduction in his term, which could reduce his prison stay by two months.

In ordering the real estate developer, a multimillionaire, to prison Aug. 1, Judge Daniels rejected a surprise recommendation from the United States Probation Office that he be spared incarceration in part for reasons of health. He also seemed little swayed by 90 letters written on Mr. Taubman's behalf by luminaries like former President Gerald R. Ford, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Queen Noor of Jordan.

''The law does not countenance a robbery,'' Judge Daniels told a somber Mr. Taubman, who was dressed in a three-piece gray suit and crisp white shirt. Watching from the front row of the packed courtroom were his wife, Judy, making her first appearance in court, his children and other family members.

Yesterday's sentencing was the penultimate chapter in a dramatic five-year investigation into the rigging of commission fees by the two auction giants that has shaken their gilded $4 billion-a-year world. The scandal has led Sotheby's and Christie's to agree to settle class action suits with more than 100,000 customers for $512 million, forced an overhaul of auction house business practices and torn apart business relationships and careers built over decades.

''Price-fixing is a crime whether it's committed in the grocery store or the halls of a great auction house,'' Judge Daniels said.

Mr. Taubman had brought it on himself, the judge added. ''There is a lack of contrition demonstrated,'' he said. ''He has continued a conspiracy of denial.'' Mr. Taubman has persisted in portraying himself as the victim of a frame-up, Judge Daniels went on, adding, ''He has neither acknowledged responsibility nor shown any remorse.''

Asked if he had anything to say before the judge pronounced sentence, Mr. Taubman, flanked by his lawyers, stood facing the judge and said, ''No sir, your honor, thank you.'' Afterward neither he, his family, nor his lawyers made any comment as they shoved their way through a crush of photographers to Mr. Taubman's waiting black S.U.V. and sped off. But a spokesman for Mr. Taubman, Christopher Tennyson, said later that his lawyers, from Davis Polk & Wardwell, were considering an appeal of the Dec. 5 conviction. They have 10 days to decide.

In addition to his wife, the group included Mr. Taubman's two sons, Robert and William; his daughter, Gayle Kalisman; his stepdaughter, Tiffany Dubin; and her husband, Louis.

Yesterday's courtroom drama leaves one more chapter to be concluded in the long-running auction case: next Monday's sentencing of Diana D. Brooks, former chief executive of Sotheby's and Mr. Taubman's protégée and chief accuser, who pleaded guilty in 2000 and agreed to assist the government in hopes of winning leniency. In court, Ms. Brooks testified that she was simply carrying out the orders of her boss.

Missing was Sir Anthony Tennant, Mr. Taubman's onetime counterpart, who was chairman of Christie's from 1993 to 1996 and who was indicted along with Mr. Taubman a year ago next month. Sir Anthony has denied his involvement and has refused to come to the United States from England. Under English law, he could not be extradited to stand trial.

Judge Daniels, who presided over Mr. Taubman's 16-day trial last November and December, said of Mr. Taubman's crime, ''This was not a crime motivated by need but by arrogance and greed.''

Earlier in the morning, Robert B. Fiske Jr., one of Mr. Taubman's lawyers, painted a far different picture of his client, saying that he had already paid a terrible price. Mr. Fiske spent a considerable time citing the numerous charitable organizations and good works that Mr. Taubman, whose fortune was valued at more than $640 million, had contributed to over the years.

He also discussed his client's health. Mr. Taubman, who suffers from diabetes and sleep apnea, takes 26 pills a day, he said, citing Mr. Taubman's doctors as estimating that he could be expected to live only 3.8 more years. ''To impose a prison sentence is to impose a life sentence,'' he said.

But John J. Greene, the government's lead prosecutor, countered, ''He still hunts, fishes, plays golf and travels nationally and internationally,'' adding that, ''The only way this crime can be taken seriously is incarceration.'' He asked for the maximum three-year sentence.

After a striking start in 1997 with the subpoenaing of records from Sotheby's, Christie's, and more than a dozen prominent art dealers, the investigation cooled until early 2000, when Christie's handed over key documents to the government that amounted to a road map of the collusion. In return, Christie's received conditional amnesty. Mr. Taubman and Ms. Brooks were then forced to resign their positions with Sotheby's. Sotheby's pleaded guilty to price-fixing charges and was fined $45 million. Mr. Taubman agreed to pay $156 million of Sotheby's share of the huge class action settlement, plus an additional $30 million to settle a stockholder's suit.

While Sir Anthony, Mr. Taubman's former counterpart at Christie's, was safe across the ocean yesterday, his presence was felt in court. Judge Daniels said he believed Mr. Taubman and Sir Anthony were leaders in the conspiracy, giving directions to Ms. Brooks and her counterpart, Christopher M. Davidge, Christie's former chief executive.

The judge quoted from an April 30, 1993, memo Sir Anthony wrote memorializing a meeting he had had with Mr. Taubman: ''Everything should be monitored and checked back if need be. He and I should withdraw but stay in touch with a view to seeing how things go and intervening from on high if need be.''

Correction:

An article yesterday about the sentencing of A. Alfred Taubman, the former Sotheby's chairman convicted of price-fixing, used a misspelled given name in some copies for his stepdaughter's husband, who was among the relatives present. He is Louis Dubin, not Lewis.

We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports, and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 1 of the National edition with the headline: Ex-Chairman Of Sotheby's Gets Jail Time. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Federal Judge George B Daniels sentences Sotheby's ex-chairman A Alfred Taubman to year and day in prison and fine of $7.5 million for role in price-fixing scheme with rival Christie's; under little-known provision, Taubman is also ordered to pay for his incarceration, expected to be at least $21,601 per year; judge rejects surprise recommendation from United States Probation Office that Taubman be spared incarceration in part for reasons of health (M)

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Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi makes auction history

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Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi makes auction history

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Christie's 15 November 2017

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Leonardo's Salvator Mundi makes auction history | Christie's

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The rediscovered masterpiece sells for $450,312,500 - a new world auction record for any work of art - at Christie's in New York

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Leonardo da Vinci painting sells for world record $450 million despite lingering doubts over its authenticity

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Leonardo da Vinci painting sells for world record $450 million despite lingering doubts over its authenticity

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The Telegraph Barney Henderson, New York and George Fuller, video producer

16 NOVEMBER 2017 • 9:39AM

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Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World) was bought for $450 million (£342 million) in New York on Wednesday evening, shattering the record for the most expensive artwork ever sold.

The painting, which was once part of Charles I's Royal collection and was sold for just £45 in the 1950s when it was mistaken for a copy, is the last remaining Leonardo in private hands.

It sold for a total amount, including fees paid by the winner to the auction house, of $450,312,500 million following 19 minutes of bidding at Christie's in New York - despite lingering questions by some experts over its authenticity and condition.

Four telephone bidders and one in the auction room duelled for the masterpiece, which had a guaranteed pre-sale bid of at least $100 million.

Bidding slowed at around the $200 million mark, and then one of the telephone bidders helped to push it towards $300 million as the price jumped $2 million at a time.

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Leonardo da Vinci painting sells for world record $450 million despite lingering doubts over its authenticity

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Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World) was bought for $450 million (£342 million) in New York on Wednesday evening, shattering the record for the most expensive artwork ever sold. The painting, which was once part of Charles I's Royal collection and was sold for just £45 in the 1950s when it was mistaken for a copy, is the last remaining Leonardo in private hands.

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BBC News 14 September 2018

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A painting by British artist David Hockney is set to become the most expensive work by a living artist to ever be sold at auction.

Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) is expected to fetch $80m (£61m) at auction in New York in November, according to Christie's.

It is "one of the great masterpieces of the modern era," Christie's added.

The current record belongs to American Jeff Koons. His stainless steel Balloon Dog (Orange) sold for $58m in 2013.

"Right now, the price level for this painting is set in the region of $80m, which doesn't mean I want to cap it there, but that's where we place it within the context of market history," said Alex Rotter, co-chairman of Post-War and Contemporary Art and Christie's.

"In 10, 15, 20 years from now, if you buy it, we definitely want it back and I can tell you, we'll sell it for more," he added.

One of the Yorkshire painter's most recognisable works, the composition of the two figures began as two separate photographs on the artist's studio floor.

It was completed in time for an exhibition at New York's André Emmerich Gallery in 1972.

It has since appeared in a number of retrospectives at the Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Met in New York.

Earlier this year, another of the 81-year-old's paintings sold for $28.5m (£21.1m) - a personal auction record for the artist.

Christie's has not disclosed the private seller, but Mr Rotter added: "It is this rare coincidence - when the best painting of an artist is actually available.

"With this painting, Hockney cemented his placement within the realm of history's most venerated artists, and come November, it is poised to become the most valuable work of art by a living artist ever sold at auction."

The painting will be exhibited in Hong Kong, London and Los Angeles, before it is auctioned on 15 November.

Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

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A painting by British artist David Hockney is set to become the most expensive work by a living artist to ever be sold at auction. Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) is expected to fetch $80m (£61m) at auction in New York in November, according to Christie's.

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Christie’s Makes It Official: Hockney Masterwork Looking for $80m in New York This November

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Christie’s Makes It Official: Hockney Masterwork Looking for $80m in New York This November

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Art Market MonitorSeptember 13, 2018 by Marion Maneker

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It hasn't really been a secret that Christie's has one of the most important David Hockney dual portraits to sell this Autumn. Katya Kazakina was the first to report that Joe Lewis would be selling his Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972 for a princely sum that is three times the record price paid for the artist. We'll have more detail on the progression of the Hockney market in a post for AMMpro subscribers. But here let's simply say that two years ago, a small sketch for this work was sold for twice the high estimate of $1m. The last time a portrait from this era sold was nine years ago. The estate of collector Betty Freeman, who was the subject of a massive 12-foot-wide 1967 portrait, realized $7.9m then. It was followed six months later by the smaller California Art Collector (1964) which made $5.4m.

How much a collector will be willing to pay for this work is one of the great market questions. Nothing like it has come up for auction since 2003 when the artist's Portrait of Nick Wilder was sold. The Contemporary art market has seen values rise by many multiples since 2003. The question that will be revealed in November is how that multiplication can be applied to the Hockney market. Until then, here's Christie's press release on the painting:

In its November Evening Sale of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie's will offer one of the most quintessential canvases of the 20th Century, David Hockney's Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972 (estimate in the region of $80 million). Representing a culminating apex of the artist's two most celebrated motifs- the glistening water of a swimming pool and a double portrait - Portrait of an Artist is an immediately recognizable and iconic image in Hockney's diverse oeuvre. Having graced the covers of numerous artist monographs, starred in various exhibitions - including his traveling retrospective organized by the Tate Britain, the Centre Pompidou, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017-2018 - as well as the 1974 cult Hockney film, A Bigger Splash, the present canvas firmly stands its ground among Hockney's most celebrated works.

Alex Rotter, Co-Chairman Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie's, remarked: "Christie's is honored to offer Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), which stands as one of the great masterpieces of the modern era. David Hockney's brilliance as an artist is on full display with this monumental canvas, which encapsulates the essence of the idealized poolside landscape, and the tremendous complexity that exists within human relationships. With this painting, Hockney cemented his placement within the realm of history's most venerated artists, and come November, it is poised to become the most valuable work of art by a living artist ever sold at auction."

An often-told story of two compositions-the first destroyed over months of working and reworking, Hockney originally conceived the composition for Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) from the accidental, almost surreal juxtaposition of two photographs on his studio floor-one of a swimmer underwater, taken in Hollywood in 1966, and the other of a boy staring at something on the ground. Intrigued by how together, the disparate clipped images made it appear as if the boy was staring at the swimmer, this double-portrait arranged by chance impelled for Hockney a substantial dramatic charge.

Chief among his courtier of muses is the standing figure in Portrait of an Artist, Peter Schlesinger. Hockney met the eighteen-year-old Schlesinger in 1966 while he was a student in one of Hockney's advanced art classes at UCLA. For the next five years, Schlesinger would prove to be the great love of Hockney's life as well as a favorite model. The two lived together in California and London, mixing with Hockney's expansive social circle as a prominent couple in the worlds of art, film and literature. Throughout the late '60s as their relationship deepened, Hockney's desire to capture the intensity of his feelings for Peter, as well as his physical beauty, contributed greatly to the artist's sudden shift towards a more naturalistic approach to his work. However, the much younger Schlesinger was far less gregarious than Hockney, and tensions between the pair grew gradually before a heated fight in Cadaqués in 1971 led to the end of their relationship-leaving Hockney distraught.

Created during a highly productive period following the devastating end of the artist's relationship with Schlesinger, Portrait of an Artist is a powerful testament to the therapeutic power of painting. And out of his great sadness, came a time of extraordinary creative output.

Hockney had begun the painting in October 1971-as documented by Jack Hazan, who recorded its progress in his movie titled A Bigger Splash, about the end of Hockney and Peter Schlesinger's five-year relationship. Hockney first resolved to paint Portrait of an Artist in 1971, but after months of struggling through the composition abandoned the first incarnation of the canvas around the same time as the dissolution of his romance with Schlesinger.

In early April, Hockney began the canvas anew in preparation for his exhibition the following month with André Emmerich Gallery in New York. Hockney travelled to Le Nid du Duc-director Tony Richardon's house in the South of France-to take further preparatory photographs for the painting, taking his studio assistant Mo McDermott as a stand-in for Schlesinger and a young photographer named John St. Clair as the swimmer. Hockney took hundreds of photos, which came to cover the wall of his studio. Using those images, Hockney worked on the painting with great passion for eighteen hours a day for two weeks, completing it the night before it was to leave for the New York exhibition.

Another chief source of inspiration for Hockney is the image of the pool. Hockney's discovery of his most famous subject matter corresponded to his arrival in Los Angeles nearly a decade earlier. Already celebrated as an enfant terrible of Contemporary art by the time he left the Royal College of Art in London in 1962, Hockney had first traveled to California in January 1964. The place held a magnetic draw for the artist, who had immersed himself in the potent idealism of its sun-drenched landscape, and the California that he had found in magazines, movies and the gay novels of John Rechy. Here, he felt free to invent the city, giving it a promptly recognizable, iconic form. "[Los Angeles was] the first time I had ever painted a place," Hockney later explained. "In London I think I was put off by the ghost of Sickert, and I couldn't see it properly. In Los Angeles, there were no ghosts... I remember seeing, within the first week, the ramp of a freeway going into the air and I suddenly thought: My God, this place needs its Piranesi; Los Angeles could have a Piranesi, so here I am" (D. Hockney, quoted in S. Howgate, David Hockney Portraits, exh. cat., National Portrait Gallery, London, 2006, p. 39).

Deeply attuned to the history of art, Portrait of an Artist recalls the images of the classical renditions of the bather placed in an idyllic background found in Western painting since the Renaissance. The convention is a metaphor not only for the harmonious relationship between the human figure and nature, but also represents a world that is uncorrupted and pure. Employing a combination of a graphic designer's eye for composition, an illustrator's technique, the precision of a photograph and a painter's sensitivity to color, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) not only conveys the essence of the Californian good-life that had inspired him a decade before, but also stands as a vivid testament to a once in a life-time love.

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Christie's Makes It Official: Hockney Masterwork Looking for $80m in New York This November

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It hasn't really been a secret that Christie's has one of the most important David Hockney dual portraits to sell this Autumn. Katya Kazakina was the first to report that Joe Lewis would be selling his Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972 for a princely sum that is three times the record price paid for the artist.

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Sotheby’s Unveils $30m Marsden Hartley Berlin Abstract

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Sotheby’s Unveils $30m Marsden Hartley Berlin Abstract

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Art Market Monitor September 14, 2018 by Marion Maneker

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Six years ago, MoMA mounted its striking and unconventional show "Inventing Abstraction: 1910-1925" which opened with the unconventional choice of four works by Marsden Hartley from his Berlin series. The whole of the series was assembled two years later at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin for a show that Roberta Smith described as confirming Hartley's world-class status:

Before Jasper Johns or Jackson Pollock, there was Marsden Hartley, America's first great modern painter of the 20th century. He achieved this distinction in Paris and most of all in Berlin between early 1912 and late 1915. There he produced a stream of paintings that synthesized Cubism and other European modernisms, mixed in non-Western motifs and mysterious symbols and culminated in his lusty, elegiac German Officer paintings

One of the missed opportunities of this season's estates was the Berlin, No. 49 painting owned by Barney Ebsworth that was donated to the Seattle Art Museum as consolation for the estate's decision to sell Ebsworth's legendary American art collection. Any collector gnashing their teeth at missing out on one of the rare Berlin works still in private hands will rejoice this morning to learn that Sotheby's has Ed and Deborah Shein's Pre-War Pageant (1913-15) which was shown at Washington, DC's National Gallery in 2010. There's talk of one of these works trading on the private market for $20m or more. That might explain the $30m estimate. The rarity of the work, with Ebsworth's example going to a museum precious few are left in private hands, also commands such a strong price. Here's Sotheby's release on the work which will sell in New York on November 12th:

Sotheby's is pleased to announce today that Marsden Hartley's triumphant Pre-War Pageant will be among the highlights of this group offered during the November Evening Sale, when it is estimated to sell in the region of $30 million.

Pre-War Pageant stands as a seminal painting in the development of Modern art, and represents one of the first examples of an American artist working in a purely abstract idiom. The canvas hails from a groundbreaking group of paintings that Hartley produced in Berlin between 1913 and 1915 - the majority of which reside in museum collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Coming to auction this November from the collection of Ed and Deborah Shein, this magnificent painting headlined an exhibition of American Modernist works from their collection at the National Gallery of Art in 2010.

Liz Sterling, Senior Vice President and Senior Specialist in Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art Department, said: "It is a privilege to present Pre-War Pageant, which represents an extraordinary achievement in Modern painting. The works that Hartley produced in Berlin from 1913-15 are boldly radical and widely considered to be the most important in the development of Modern art in America. Pre-War Pageant is a true masterpiece within this series, and one of the few examples left in private hands. There have been numerous testaments to Hartley's genius in recent years - most notably in the acclaimed show of his Berlin pictures at the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2014-15. Pre-War Pageant has not been shown publicly since that time, and we look forward to presenting this exceptional painting to collectors worldwide in November."

Sotheby's will exhibit this enrapturing and dynamic work around the world this fall, including in Frankfurt, London and Los Angeles, before returning to our New York headquarters for the exhibition of our full Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art auctions beginning 2 November. Pre-War Pageant radically melds diverse influences - Cubism, German Expressionism (a nod to Hartley's personal relationships with both Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky), Native American Art and Mysticism, among others - into a bold and inimitable composition that captures the tenor of Berlin and Hartley's emotional response to the city that he loved. It is a brilliant visual documentation of the energy and underlying tension there, as well as the personal liberation that Hartley felt in the thriving metropolis in the year before the outbreak of the War. Hartley wrote to Gertrude Stein in 1913, the year he painted Pre-War Pageant, that his paintings "express a fresh consciousness of what I see + feel around me - taken directly out of life + from no theorist formulas as prevails so much today."

Pre-War Pageant presages the development of Modern art in America, and Hartley's lauded Berlin pictures are recognized today as some of the earliest works by an American artist in a purely abstract idiom. Rendered in bold colors and muscular brushwork, the diverse iconography in the present work includes: a tee pee form at center, alluding to Native American culture; portions of various flags that are a reference to the Prussian military culture and pageantry that defined Berlin at the time, as well as a nod to Cubist influences; a series of 8-pointed stars, which appear in a number of Hartley's Berlin pictures and reference the stars on the officers uniforms as well as act as a mystical symbol; and the target, which the artist saw as a universal symbol, much as Jaspar Johns would more than 40 years later. This richly-complex work also references a number of dualities, including allusions to day and night, heaven and earth, and a myriad of others. Hartley painted the present work during a particularly amorous period in his life. The artist had fallen in love with Karl von Freyburg of the Prussian guard, who was tragically killed in the war in 1914. This inspired Hartley to produce his most widely-known painting, Portrait of a German Officer, which currently resides in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Pre-War Pageant retains its original artist-painted frame, imparting a dynamic sculptural presence and sense of the composition emanating beyond the picture plane, exploding in space. Indeed, when she first saw Pre-War Pageant and other works from the series exhibited at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery 291 in 1914, Georgia O'Keeffe remembered thinking they were like "a brass band in a little closet." The impact of Hartley's Berlin pictures on the subsequent generations cannot be overstated, including inspiring Robert Indiana to create his Hartley Elegies series.

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Sotheby's Unveils $30m Marsden Hartley Berlin Abstract

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Six years ago, MoMA mounted its striking and unconventional show "Inventing Abstraction: 1910-1925" which opened with the unconventional choice of four works by Marsden Hartley from his Berlin series.