|
Irish Art Market News...2008 |
 The Solitary Turf Gatherer, Paul Henry |
Irish Art Market (2008)When it comes to identifying trends in Irish art, or assessing the current and potential value of Irish artists, there is no substitute for professional advice from art experts. Fortunately, Ireland has a number of eminent auctioneers and valuers who deal in Irish painting and sculpture, including: James Adam and Sons, de Veres Art Auctions, Whyte & Sons, Loughlin Bowe (Kilkenny), and John Ross & Company (Belfast). |
 A Family (1951) Louis le Brocquy. |
Other companies include: Dolan's of Galway, Morgan O'Driscoll of Cork and Dublin auctioneer Garret O'Connor. All these companies offer expert advice to both private and corporate art collectors. In addition, the Ashville Media Group produce an excellent annual survey of auction sales (A Buyers Guide to Irish Art) with comprehensive results from UK and Irish sales rooms, which is available in bookshops, while the Irish Arts Review journal produces an annual list of Irish artworks sold at auction, which is available free with its year-end issue. For anyone interested in the state of visual art in Ireland, including Irish Sculpture, these publications are essential references. |
|
|
William Scott Still-Life Sells for £1 million June 6, 2008: The still life painting "Bowl, Eggs and Lemons", by County Fermanagh painter William Scott (1913-89), was bought for for £1,071,650 at Christie's in London. Scott thus joins the select band of Irish artists whose works have breached the £1 million barrier. Record Price For Irish Painting - May 14, 2008 At a Sotheby's auction in New York (May 14, 2008), a mystery art collector spent $86.3 million on "Triptych", a three-panel painting by Francis Bacon, making it the most expensive piece of Irish art in history. Sources claim that the unidentified buyer was none other than Roman Abramovich, the Russian owner of London's Chelsea football club. Not previously noted for his love of fine art, Abramovich is worth over £11 billion, according to the Sunday Times "Rich List." Source: Sunday Times, May 18, 2008. Auction of Irish Art - May 7, 2008 The annual London sale of Irish art at Sotheby's (May 7, 2008) and Christie's (May 8, 2008) was down by 40 percent on the previous year. Salesroom revenue (excl fees) totalled £6.7 million, although active post-auction selling is estimated to add a further £600,000. Despite good attendance figures at both auctions, a sign that the Irish art market remains popular at least among collectors from Ireland, buyers were cautious and much more selective in their bidding, with approximately 40 percent of lots being unsold at Sotheby's, and 34 percent at Christie's; a significant increase on 2007. The top hammer price was £500,000 paid by an American buyer for a portrait by Walter Osborne (1859-1903) entitled 'Dorothy and Irene Falkiner', while auction records were set for Nathaniel Hone The Elder (1718-84) and Daniel O'Neill (1920-74), in respect of a 1782 double-portrait (£295,000) and 'Reclining Figure' (£216,000) respectively. Other highlights from Sotheby's and Christie's included two works by John Lavery (1856-1941) - 'A Windy Day' (£400,000) and 'Miss Auras, The Red Book' (£170,000) - 'Connemara Cottage Dwellers' (£240,500) by Louis le Brocquy, 'Pasage, Pont-Aven' (£200,000) by the Irish Impressionist Roderic O'Conor (1860-1940), a Galway landscape (£168,500) by Paul Henry (1876-1958), two paintings by Jack B Yeats (1871-1957), 'Death' (£80,000) by Harry Aaaron Kernoff (1900-74), 'The Harvesters' (£65,000) by Nora McGuinness (1901-80), an 18-inch sculpture 'The Pianist I' (£38,000) by FE McWilliam (1909-92), and a bronze (£23,000) by the contemporary Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie. However, several paintings by major Irish artists were withdrawn from sale, including: 'Image of Samuel Beckett' by Louis le Brocquy (later sold at the low estimate of £180,000), 'The Table in the Blue Room' by Gerard Dillon (later sold for £100,000), and 'The Shrimper' by Paul Henry (later sold for £110,000). Other works withdrawn pending further negotiations included 'The Bridge at Paris' by William Leech (1881-1968) and 'We Are Leaving You Now' by Jack B Yeats. At Sotheby's, 116 lots grossed £4.15 million, compared with £6.12 million from 164 lots in 2007. At Christie's, 162 lots grossed £2.6 million compared with £4.38 million from 138 lots in 2007, although Christie's afternoon sale of lesser works (which contributed £1 million to the 2007 total) was dropped from the 2008 event. Overall, given the economic slowdown over the last 18 months, the results were not unexpected, and although Irish auctioneers and dealers described the atmosphere as much quieter than previous years, sentiment in the Irish art market remains relatively buoyant with no shortage of money for rare or realistically priced items. Source: Irish Times, May 10, 2008. |
|
Irish Fine Art 2007: A Brief Summary Although sellers registered numerous record prices and recorded healthy profits during the year, signs of caution emerged, not least because of the general slowdown in economic activity. One should also note the relative scale of market pricing: according to An Investor's Guide to the Art Market (Dr Clare McAndrew), more than 80 per cent of work sold here went under the hammer for less than 5,000 euros, and almost 50 percent for 1,000 euros or less. Add to this, the fact that the reputation of many Irish artists is confined largely to their native country. In short, excluding worldwide 'names' like Francis Bacon, Louis le Brocquy and Jack B. Yeats, the Irish art market lacks a global dimension. True, this is offset to a degree by the enthusiasm of Irish buyers for local artworks (witness the huge price of 400,000 euros paid for Ulysses Off Connemara (1952) by Sean Keating), but it serves to demonstrate that the Irish market is, to a degree, 'detached' from the global market. Thus, after spectacular results in early 2007, (for example, Whyte's February sale generated several new Irish painting records for artists like George (AE) Russell and Markey Robinson; while de Veres June sale generated double the revenues of the previous year), the second half of 2007 was lack lustre by comparison with unsold lots (including famous named artists) at several auctions rising to 30-50 percent. A particularly surprising example was a rare, previously unseen, painting by William Gerard Barry which attracted no buyer. Even the relatively successful Kearney autumn auction at Adams - which generated over 5 million euros - was down on a comparable event in 2006. Not even major names like William Leech, Louis le Brocquy, Tony O'Malley, Colin Middleton, William Orpen and Gerard Dillon have proved immune to this slippage in demand. Even so, total Irish sales in 2007 were, broadly speaking, some 10 percent up on the previous year - which itself was very significantly up on 2005 - although the number of works shown dropped to 3,500, compared to 4,500 in 2006 and 3,900 in 2005. Given the number of new Irish art galleries, the latter trend is somewhat disappointing. Among the most successful artists were Louis le Brocquy (A Family [1951] sold for 680,000); Jack B Yeats (A Man Doing Accounts, sold for 250,000); William Orpen (The Blue Hat, went for 500,000); while other artists achieved top prices as follows: Leo Whelan (265,000), William Conor (192,000), Gerard Dillon (192,000), Basil Blackshaw (160,000), Daniel O'Neill (156,000), to name but a few. |
|
• For more about scenic artworks,
see: Irish landscape artists. Irish
Art News Articles - Guide to Irish
Art Exhibitions |
