April and May 2009 Sales Of Greek Art, London
May saw the two biannual Greek art sales take place in London. The worst was expected but the market was anything but bad. It was actually very good and the prices achieved were indicative of this strong market.
Sothebys, London
Sothebys started the sales on 6th May with just 125 lots and a 76% selling rate, which raised 3.5 million pounds. Highlights of the sale were paintings by Volanakis, Jakobides, Bouzianis, Tsarouhis, Engonopoulos, Kontopoulos, Tsingos, Kessanlis and other modern artists. The after sale of their most expensive lot added another 600,000 to the sale.
Of the modern contemporary living artists Fassianos is the top name with Derpapas, Manolides and Yeros maintaining the interest of buyers. Undoubtedly, Sothebys will mount a big important sale for the autumn now that the worst of the financial crisis seems to be over.
Bonhams, London
Bonhams had a more substantial sale with 145 lots. They sold 112 lots which represents 77% sold of the lots and netted over the 3.6 million pounds. That was a very good sale for Bonhams under the circumstances and in view of the fact that they always lacked behind Sothebys in sales totals. The connection with Athens seems to be working and the sales of Bonhams are apparently as strong as Sothebys’ ones, as long as the quality is similar.
The sale at Bonhams was more of a twentieth century art affair with best prices going to Parthenis and Ghika at over 300,000 each. Pantazis sold for 120,00 plus commissions as did Bouzianis and Tsarouhis. Fassianos and Tsingos are always popular with several works on offer, which sold at healthy prices.
Among the up and coming artists at auction we must mention Coulentianos sculpture at 26,000, Kottis’s huge canvases selling in the 20,000 pounds bracket, Samios, Petropoulou, Papanelopoulos and others.
Concluding this review on the Greek Art Sales, we must only add that the future looks rosy, promising and rewarding for the cautious as well as the adventurous investors in art.
Peter Constant
GREEK Sales Autumn 2009
Bonhams 10th November 2009-10-10
Lots On Offer : 162
Lots Sold: 134 or 83%
Total Sold by value: 3,500,000
Bonhams and their associates in Athens make an attempt to break into serious cataloguing and extensive discourse in this sale. Their effort is commendable even though the quality on offer does not reach earlier sales of theirs.
Bonhams offer lacks the substance and quality of their May 2009 sale, which raised 3.6 million pounds. There are a few important pieces in the sale but the lower end of the market where new investors and collectors can acquire up and coming artists is rich. Obvious in his absence in the sale is the work of Volanakis. Also no substantial works by Spyropoulos or Fasianos are in the sale this time round.
However on the positive side of things there is an impressive work of Maleas of the Acropolis to compensate for the lack of other important content. Also on offer are important works by Pantazis, Iakovides, Ralli, Papaloukas and Ghika. We add here Economou and Moralis with lesser quality works than usual.
The younger generation of artists and in particular end of the twentieth century and twenty-first century lacks the quality and normal offer of numbers. Mytaras examples are of no consequence, Kottis works lack the size and importance, Fassianos paintings are always many but of little quality and Stathopoulos example an attempt to promote the artist at a much higher level than its market value dictates.
Among the sculpture on offer shines the work of Koulentianos and especially his unique piece of Crete Number 66.
Among the artists we recommend to our collectors and investors to have an eye on are:
Coulentianos, Gounaropoulos, Mavroides, Mytaras, Pantazis, Rinas, Samios
Stylianides and Xenos.
The Sale
This was a resounding Greek Sale success at 83% sold by lot. The saleroom was well attended, the bidding was fierce and the telephones were as busy as ever during the whole auction.
The sale’s star lots sold well and at the expected prices with Maleas at 260, 000 plus commissions, Moralis at 230,000 plus commissions, Ralli at 130,000 plus commissions. As expected Ghika surpassed expectations once again.
Works by Tsingos, Fassianos, Vasiliou, Economou, Kontopoulos, Tetsis, Samaras and others made near the hundred thousand pounds. What a success story with these middle of the road paintings!
Coulentianos unique relief of Crete sold for 48,000 including commissions.
The younger and modern, contemporary artists did very well too. Rinas, Kottis, Filopoulou, Zouni, Kalogeropoulou and others did very well. Mytaras is a solid investment for any work selling in the mid tens of thousands with works that do not inspire.
At this moment and time we have to praise the efforts of the team Bonhams and the great cataloguing they are involved in right now. They are at the improving side of things and we predict they will overtake Sothebys total sales in the next auction.
Well done guys!
Psatharis Auctions, Nicosia – Cyprus
Greek sale, 14th October, Nicosia Cyprus
Lots on offer: 120
Lots Sold : 82 or 68 %
Total sold: 185,000 Euros
The auction of Psatharis in Cyprus has managed within the last two years to put Cypriot artists on the map of art sales and create a new, small market for Greek art. Never too ambitious, always down to earth, the management of the auction once again has put together a good group of paintings to suit the lower end of the Greek market. There is a good mix of Cypriot artists with a number of mainland Greek artists.
Top lot in the sale is the unique piece of Christoforos Savva, which decorates the front cover of the catalogue. We expect the top lot of the sale to sell well above the lower estimate of 43,000 Euros.
Several of the main Cypriot artist are represented in the sale with Kanthos, Skoteinos, Votsis, Oiconomou, Frangoulides, Hadjisotiriou. Some important names from mainland Greek artists are included in the sale and among them are Fasianos, Mytaras, Doukas, Germenis, Pantaleon, Zenetzis, Manousakis, Thomopoulos and Samios.
Among the artists we suggest to keep an eye on are:
Hadjisoteriou, Oiconomou, Lefteris, Samios, Mytaras, Zenetzis, Doukas and Pantaleon.
The Sale In Nicosia’s Hilton
Psatharis auctions are the lowest Greek art sale and affair. The sold percentage was good. The top lots sold in the sale were Fasianos with a small work at 9.500 Euros and Hadgisoteriou with 10,500 sale of one of his Cypriot saint like women compositions. Tristram Ellis watercolour of Cyprus was rare and did well at about 5,000 E.
Samios sold well for a small work of his as well as Zenetzis with a small picture of Cypurs at 800 Euros. The disappointment in the sale was Mytaras with nearly all lots on offer unsold. We attribute that to high estimates but we hear that sales took place after the sale. Finally unsold remained the top lot of Savva which we believe should find a buyer after the sale. The only reason we see for this master piece to be unsold was the medium it was painted and conceived in.
Vergos Auctions, Athens
31st October 2009
Lots 132
Sold 100 or 75%
Total sold was 1,500,000 inclusive of an 18% buyer’s commision
Vergos Auctions have been selling art in Athens for a few years now. The auctions are well attended and the results achieved can be trusted as genuine. Unfortunately we have no earlier results or catalogues from them and so our comments will be just for this sale happening on 31st October.
The sale has a substantial number of Greek art with a couple just about on the higher end of the market. That is a Volanakis work valued ambitiously at 100.000 Euros. There is also a rare piece of Theofilos among the better lots. Other significant for this auction artists include Fasianos with middle of the road works, Prasinos, Tsingos, Mytaras, Kesanlis and others. Finally the Ghika works are many but of poor quality.
This is a sale for the lower market and up to 10,000 Euros with a few pieces over that amount. In view of the fact that Sothebys and Bonhams attract the better pieces for their sales, this is a good sale for the Athens collecting public at affordable prices.
Artists we recommend to keep an eye on are:
Mytaras, Vyzantios, Pantaleon, Samios
The sale in Athens proved successful and the Greek market moves on to London now. Any auction selling 75% of the offer is considered very successful. The 1.5 million Euros collected was also very good.
Among the noteworthy sales were the Volanakis work for 153,000 and the Theofilos hunt for lions at 70,000. Steris managed 23,000 while Tetsis marches on with a landscape at 39,000. Drounga’s 39,000 was a surprise for us. Vasiliou sold well at 59,000.
Finally Samios sold for 28,00 and Pantaleon for 11,000.
Sothebys
Sale: 9th November
Lots on sale; 173
Lots Sold: 103 or 60% of lots
Sales by value: 3,800,00 pounds inclusive of 22.5% commission
Sothebys sale lacks content and significant lots apart from a dozen. The best work has been well advertised by Sothebys in their previews and it is by one of the best 19th century Greek artist, Nikiforos Lytras.
The Fortune Teller looks to be a good painting even though not for the palate of all collectors due to the subject. To accompany this conservatively estimated work is a Gysis which is ambitiously estimated.
The sale includes an armada of works by Pantazis, Ralli, Iakovides and Bouzianis some of which will struggle in the sale. Sothebys threw caution to the wind by including several pieces by the same artists and surely the sale of all will be affected. That is very unfortunate and it does not serve the sellers nor the auction house and indeed not the whole Greek market.
The same unfortunate policy is applied when offering for sale works by Ghika, Kessanlis, Spyropoulos, Gaitis, Tsingos, Fassianos and even other artists too. Quantity rather than quality.
The lack of quality carries on with the offer of several school paintings of various Greek related subjects. We cannot see the relevance to Greek art with some but who are we to criticise the infallible team at Sothebys. Portraits which have No commercial value by image or artist close the sale, which we can only describe as a poor sale in content, when compared to earlier sales of the top auction house.
How about quality with one hundred paintings of better quality? Where is the policy of “we include only this type of work, of this lowest value and so on and so on?”
Artists to look our for in this sale are:
Samios, Doukas, Koulentianos, Kottis, Papanelopoulos
The sale
The sale was a complete disappointent when compared to earlier Greek sales of Sothebys. Sothebys never had a 60% sale rate for a Greek sale. That they managed this time because the lots offered were indeed poorly chosen or in some cases highly estimated.
The highlights of the sale were the Vasiliou View of Athens at 180,000. A lovely painting of some merit. An early work of Pireaus by Spyropoulos made 70,000. The Lytras work climbed to 300,000 thus achieving the best price in the auction. All the Bouzianis paintings sold well. Fassianos as always had a 100% sold. Ghika’s work found new heights with two pieces selling well and a late piece of his selling for 170,000.
The ambitiously estimated Tsingos of flowers failed but there Sothebys succumbed to pressure from a known dealer to have a reserve of 100,000 pounds. Too greedy dealer will probably sit on his investment for longer unless the genuine underbidder makes an after sale offer. Pavlos’ No Smoking made the reserve at 60,000 plus commission of 22.5%.
Several Iacobides remained unsold. Two of five Panatazis sold but that was a success as the quality was poor. Ralli pictures failed too because the quality was missing and the offer was too much.
Coulentianos sculpture of Nude Woman sold at 22,000 inclusive of commissions.
From the contemporary artists who are still working, Rinas sold OK and his work seems to have substance and artistry. However, we fail to see where Filopoulou’s art is. Papanelopoulos sold two uniporatnt canvases at 5,000 each as well as Samios with one work at 7,200.
The plethora of portraits on offer failed abysmally. We fail to see how experts at Sothebys included works such as the Italian Duke, portraits of supposedly Greek figures which we doubt were indeed Greek.
There will be some explanations to be made by the experts of the sale in view of Bonhams’s success and the threat to take over the lead in the Greek market.
Summing Up The Autumn Sales
The Greek sales in London, Athens and Nicosia proved a major success under the economic conditions in the whole world. When one compares the results and sold percentages of these sales and other art sales they read extremely well and they encourage the investor to trust the Greek market and rely on it as a good vehicle to accumulate wealth.
We were very worried about these round of autumn sales for many reasons but the market kept its nerve, the investors were enthusiastic and they gave it a huge thumps up! An average selling rate of 75% was good, indeed it was very, very promising regardless of any financial uncertainties, which come and go in the end.
Peter Constant
