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In Paris, the auction houses have discovered an under-served group of collectors. At Sotheby's Contemporary art sale in Paris in December 2008, an astonishing 30% of the buyers were new to Sotheby's. Grégoire Billault, Director of the Contemporary Art department, identifies many of these new bidders as French and European collectors who have neither the time nor inclination to travel to London or New York to attend a sale. But when the art arrives in their backyard, so to speak, these collectors have propelled sales at Sotheby's in 2008 30% above the previous year despite the worldwide economic crisis affecting the December sales.

Together in December, Sotheby's and Christie's sold $50 million worth of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art in Paris. Even under the difficult circumstances of the credit crisis, several important works sold for prices well above their high estimates.The top lot among the sales at both houses was Georges Seurat's Au Divan japonais. That drawing was bought at Sothebys for $6.3 million, the second highest price ever paid for a work by Seurat. This price is especially noteworthy in the context of Christie's sale two days earlier of fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin's collection of Impressionist paintings that did not reach the pre-sale expectations.

With several fine works by Boudin, Renoir, Vuillard and Degas, the Lanvin collection was characteristic of the art historical interests and tastes of the mid-20th Century. But the success of the Seurat may portend a broader shift in Impressionist and Modern market. The strength of the Seurat drawing and the success of other works allowed Sotheby's to achieve an average price of $280,000 for the Impressionist and Modern category, an increase of 70% on the previous sale in July 2008.

The top Contemporary lot in Paris was Pierre Soulages Peinture which sold at Sotheby's for nearly $1.98 million or just above the high estimate for the work. Sotheby's was also able to maintain an average price in Contemporary art that was nearly $79,000.

Significant Sales: Impressionist & Modern Art

Collectors who have felt priced out of the art market during the rapid upswing of 2007 and early 2008 are returning as buyers in every auction venue, including France. These buyers demand high quality works. They are selective, one might even say polarized, focusing their attention and bidding on paintings that offer rare opportunities. France is fertile source of works that have remained within a family for generations, often since the work was commissioned or acquired from the artist. This is one of the strengths of the Paris sales.

Such was the case with Georges Seurat's Au Divan japonais which became the center of a bidding war that drove the selling price to five times the high estimate. That price is also more than six times the previous record for a Seurat work on paper. (The earlier record was only achieved a month earlier at Christie's in New York.) A private American buyer paid nearly $6.36 million for the drawing which had not been seen in public since it was shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1941.

The Seurat attracted the most bidders in the sale and it was the work that went the farthest above its pre-sale estimate. The appeal of the Seurat was strong enough to draw bidders to another work on paper by the artist, Le Danseur à la canne, which had been estimated as high as $38,000 but sold for more than three times that amount or $138,000.

Rare Modern works also attracted aggressive bids. Albert Gleizes's “Paysage cubiste”  which sold for almost $1.15 million, or nearly twice the high estimate, had been in the same European collection since the 1920s.

Several works by Pablo Picasso performed well in Sotheby's sale. Tête de mort et livre had never been auctioned before. It sold for the second highest price in Sotheby's sale, $1.4 million. But the most bidders were attracted to “Avant la pique”, a drawing that sold for nearly $330,000 or $100,000 more than the high estimate.

A painting by Le Corbusier and a cast of Rodin's Le Penseur and an André Derain watercolor also sold exceptionally well. Works by Chagall, Miró and Botero also achieved prices far above the high estimate.

Contemporary Art

The market for Contemporary art in Paris is oriented around painters with a strong following in France either because they are under-valued French artists who are still achieving global recognition or international artists who live and work in France. Nonetheless, the French collecting community is discerning, especially in the current economic climate. Works must be of exceptional quality or offer the collector a very attractive price to generate sales.

Pierre Soulages's Peinture from 1958 presents a good example. One of two Soulages works offered in the sale, it exceeded the high estimate and set a new world record for the artist, selling for nearly $2 million. A 1959 work by Soulages had set the previous record in 2006 during Sotheby's first Contemporary art sale in Paris. However, the second work in the December sale, which was one of the last works of its size to remain in private hands, could not find a buyer.

Among the other top lots in the sale were paintings by Chinese artists who live in France like Zhu Dekun; works by important post-war French artists like Yves Klein, Maurice Estève, and Jean Fautrier; and even an American artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose work appeals to French collectors.

Significant Bidders

The sale's focus on French Contemporary artists helps explain why 85% of the value of the Contemporary art sale was purchased by European collectors. American buyers took home 8% of the sale value; and Asian buyers almost matched that value with 6% of the sale. In general, Americans were bargain hunting. With 11% of the lots but only 8% of the value, Americans acquired lover value lots. Asian buyers, on the other hand, won only 2% of the lots. So their 6% was composed of lots that exceeded the average lot price.

The Contemporary sales in Paris may focus on buyers who do not travel to London or New York. But the Impressionist and Modern sale still attracts buyers from around the world, especially when a rare work is on offer. If one looks at the regional data for the Impressionist and Modern sale by bidders, Europeans represented 66%. By lots bought, the European presence rises slightly to 71%. So the Paris sales were dominated by local buyers. One very valuable lot, however, can show the strength of the global art market. The Seurat drawing itself accounts for 37% of the Impressionist sale's total value. That lot was bought by an American collector. Measured by value, American buyers took home 56% of the sale, making that region the dominant player. But if the Seurat drawing is removed from the results, buyer's from the Americas acquired lower value lots. For the right work, the broader reach of the global market adds significant value.

Market Trends

After a successful inaugural year of sales in 2006, Sotheby's initiated separate Impressionist and Modern and Contemporary art sales in the spring of 2007. Immediately, Contemporary art provided larger sale totals. In December of 2007 and July of 2008, Sotheby's Parisian Contemporary art sales alone totaled $37 million each season. Impressionist and Modern sales at Sotheby's during that time were $16 million and $24 million respectively.

At their peak in the summer of 2008, the combined total for Impressionist and Modern as well as Contemporary art at Sotheby's in Paris was a record $61 million.

Since then, the world economic crisis has reduced auction volumes in all venues. But the combined totals for Paris remain substantially above even July of 2007. Though Contemporary art came back to the level of July 2007, the Impressionist and Modern sale total—helped along by the success of the Seurat drawing—remained at the level of the December 2007 sale, a banner moment in the global art market. In the December sale, the Impressionist and Modern category emerged as the larger portion of the combined sales for Sotheby's.