Accounting for auctions: the season's print and photography auctions reveal a variety of trends that may soon trickle down to the published art market

Imagine being a fortune teller reading through 2,700 tea leaves searching for patterns hidden therein. Such is the task of sifting through the 2,700 prints and photographs auctioned this season at the major sales held at Sotheby's and Christie's. Is it possible to divine sales patters? Yes, indeed. And the news for the print world is rather promising.

Earlier in 2002, the auction market was exceedingly poor. This was evidenced by a number of moves within the industry, eBay sold Butterfield's, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy Inc. sold its stake in Phillips, Christie's closed its East branch in New York, Sotheby's closed its Arcade branch, and Sloan's went bankrupt.

Encouragingly, though, a detailed analysis of this season's print auctions indicates that graphics may be surviving the storm.

At the prints sale held at Sotheby's New York in November, only 32 percent of the pieces failed to find buyers. At the parallel Christie's New York sale, the buy-in rate was even lower. Only 21 percent of the lots went unsold. According to Kelly Troester, head of the print department at Christie's, the sale was "pretty straightforward, boring and consistent." In light of today's sluggish economy, she believes "boring and consistent" is a good thing. "We are very happy," she said.

Print Market Indicators

To what might the print world owe this quite respectable performance? According to Troester, "if there is a downturn, prints are (practically) the last to feel the effect." She attributes this to the fact that "prints are more accessible to the public." In other words, since multiples are typically less expensive than originals, they are more attractive to penny-pinching buyers. Supporting this hypothesis is the fact that the off-season sales held at Christie's, those sales which include the lowest-priced items, have been performing even better than the main sales. One even had a buy-in rate as low as 16 percent.

Therefore, the lesson for a dealer reading these tea leaves is that collectors who used to buy large oils may now be readjusting their sights and adding prints to their collections instead.

What else can be learned as regards the attitudes of the buyers at the print auctions? Mary Bartow, the head of the Sotheby's print department, said the bidders were "careful," and evidencing this is the fact that nine of the top 10 lots in the Sotheby's sale sold within estimate. Troester observed that so many of the pieces sell within estimate because it is "so easy to predict the prices;" all parties involved simply review the past sales of comparable examples in order to determine fair values for the works on offer.

Thus, not only are purchasers focusing on more affordable items, but, in Bartow's words, "they are studying them a little more."

Portrait of a Buyer

Who, then, is doing the buying at these auctions? According to Troester, there are "always new young couples and collectors coming into the market for prints; they feed at the bottom." It would also seem that they sometimes feed in from the top. Bartow confided that it was a younger buyer who bought Edvard Munch's "The Kiss IV" for $207,500. It turned out this was only the second piece he had ever bought through Sotheby's. The lesson? It might be wise to market to Generation X.

Who is not shopping at the auctions? Dealers. According to Troester, "dealers are having a harder time with their stock." She has heard a number of them "saying they had a rough summer or early fall." Bartow offers further evidence of this trend when she observed that "dealer problems" have caused a weakness in the market for medium-priced works.

Of course, for her, medium-priced means $5,000 to $30,000. Nevertheless, in light of the evident lack of competition, this might be the time for the well-heeled to consider a purchase at that level.

Sellable Artists: Who's Hot and Who's Not?

Did the auctions offer any clues as to which artists were hot and which were not?

"Picasso all the way," said Troester," and Warhol." For the former, she observed that "Picasso is where a lot of collectors are starting." For Warhol, she related a humorous story about a dealer who is focusing his efforts on pieces with large signatures. He finds that his clients want these "so they can be easily read by their friends."

Over at Sotheby's, Bartow agreed that the market for Warhol prints is still healthy. In fact, Pop Art is generally is a safe bet. All of the 12 Harings on offer at the Sotheby's sale found buyers, and two even sold over their estimates.

All in all, "the blue chips" fared well. Every one of the top 10 lots at the Christie's sale were by household-names: Picasso, Johns, Chagall, Toulouse-Lautrec.

What type of works fared poorly? Old Masters. Bartow observed the interest in such pieces is "really weak" because there are "no new collectors getting into that market." She said even the youngest new collector of Old Master prints she knows is in his 60s. Evidencing the lack of interest in such pieces is a spectacular set of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's pieces, entitled "Carceri d'Invenzione" (est. $150,000 to $200,000), that went unsold at Sotheby's.