Word: sales
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Those wily old Romans started it all. They developed the form of sale that became the auction, and used it to sell everything from statues to tapestries to palaces and, finally, the relics of their republic. They knew well that audio (literally, an increasing) was where the action was. They should be around today...
...sale in years has come closer to craziness than Sotheby Parke Bernet's Auction 4290 in Manhattan on Oct. 25. It took only three minutes and 45 seconds to gavel down Frederic Edwin Church's The Icebergs for $2.5 million. That was the third highest bid ever made for a painting at auction* and more than twice as much as any other American work of art has ever fetched (see ESSAY). In all, the 264 works by 146 American painters of the 19th and 20th centuries posted a record for a sale...
Sotheby Parke Bernet's 4290 was a landmark sale: the prices realized at the auction will serve as reference points for years to come. Thus in the hierarchy of cash a relatively obscure artist by world standards ranks, for now at least, above any Dutch old master, any English painter, any French impressionist, any American abstract expressionist, any sculptor...
...painting from both sides of the Atlantic has emerged triumphantly from post-Reginal depression. Long dismissed as sentimental kitsch, mighty canvases of noble beasts, Highland crags and soul-pierced virgins were selling for at most $1,000 in 1967; they go these days for up to $100,000. A sale of 19th century paintings at Christie's in Manhattan returned $1.9 million. "It was a lot of rubbish," snorted one Christie...
Thus collecting valuable objects is no longer the preserve of the rich. At Sotheby's Los Angeles branch, which recorded a 1978-79 turnover of $13.7 million, 50% of all items on sale go for less than $300. Says Sotheby's Los Angeles president, Peter McCoy: "It makes sense for the average person to frequent our auctions. He'll be competing with the antique shop owner who'll sell a piece for more [probably 40% more] than he can buy it here." Caveat emptor...