A Sunday with Picasso
Reviewing this seasons Picasso's, and my intuitive take on Botero - with a Part 2 coming soon.
Hello everyone,
Happy Holiday Season to all and welcome if you are new! Now that I have my new I-phone mini (always on brand), I look forward to delivering fun articles all season, in case you need an intermission in between the festivities.
I know we’re in the middle of Art Basel Miami week, which is technically the biggest art week of the year, but I’ve only just wrapped my head around the November auctions. Although I’m not there, I’ve been keeping an eye out and I will share my favourite pieces from Miami towards the end of the week.
This blog post features the one and only, Picasso! It is part 1/2 of a slightly more art-business oriented post, with numbers, analysis, a chart (that I made!!!) and a prediction for the future, just for fun. If you aren’t familiar with this particular aspect of the art world, have no fear! I’ve made a solid effort to communicate and explain in a fun way, but if you have any questions, need clarification or want to discuss further, please feel free to respond to this email directly.
I spent a Sunday collecting my thoughts on the results from this seasons marquee sales of the world’s favourite artist, Picasso. With statistics like his, a person could spend many Sundays with Picasso, and this seasons’ sales were no different; however, I have a slight intuition about the late Botero and his work that I wanted to mention, and explore that topic further in the next post.
2023 seems to be an interesting year for artists - it marks exactly 50 years since Picasso passed away, and South American artist Fernando Botero died in September of 2023, as well. It is also worth mentioning that as I have been writing this article, I was invited to a Private View of a new Picasso exhibit in London, called “A Painters Studio Should be a Laboratory.” I swear it’s him jumping out of his grave to warn me against making such a strong claim in support of Botero. We know he was an intense man, but from the grave it is a bit much for my tiny art brain! The exhibit is on at the Paul Stolper Gallery, and is open to the public from December 1st 2023 - 9th February 2024. Will give you my thoughts on the show later this week!
Overview of Auctions - Fall 2023 edition
This past November has been a faithful host to two weeks of mega marquee sales in the art world. Known as gigaweek, this time period is historically known for the major auctions houses to host sales of famous masterpieces and blue chip art occurring before the end of the year.
Mid November, two of the worlds biggest auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, each held remarkable evening auctions in New York. Due to recent global life and economic uncertainty, there has been speculation brewing since September in regards to how well the sales would perform, and with the market recently turning to a buyers market, there was discussion about whether or not the great art masterpieces would actually be discounted (!!!) for once…The simple answer is absolutely not, especially for the coveted masterpieces. International buyers were still in a frenzy over the 1932 Picasso at Sotheby’s, and the artwork took less than 5 minutes to sell.
It was a juicy auction, with many works coming out of some highly respected collections. This particular Sotheby’s auction has been discussed since September, because it was an auction of blue chip (read: high ticket) art from some of the worlds greatest artists, out of the well-known collection and estate of a legendary art supporter and collector, Emily Fisher Landau. Recently, Emily Fisher Landau sadly passed away at the age of 102 (!). She was a very interesting woman who had her own private museum in Long Island City, Queens, New York. This sale of hers actually was officially the most valuable auction dedicated to a female collector in auction history, achieving an eye-watering $406.4 million dollars.
Picasso on the Block
Picasso, at the time of writing this, does an awful lot of heavy lifting in the art market stabilisation department. In the Fisher-Landau sale specifically, the painting sold achieved the second highest price on record for Picasso to date. Let’s take a look at some of Picasso statistics from gigaweek below:
Picasso at Autumn/Winter 2023 Auctions:
Picasso appeared twice in the top ten lots sold overall; he had the majority market share of all lots sold this season coming in at 12.67% of the entire auction, TOTAL = $271 938 920. (Click here and subscribe to the best art data site!)
I believe there is still a clear preference for his brightly coloured and culturally popular work featuring his many muses. “Buste de Femme” for example, did NOT reach its low estimate price of 18 million usd. This specific painting is an extremely important piece, as it demonstrates Picasso’s pivotal transition into high cubism, which where he produced some of his most notorious, and highest priced work to date; however the colours are more subdued and the subject less controversial, therefore it doesn’t seem to be able to achieve these astronomical numbers as easily at the moment.
Picasso numbers in life:
Picasso holds a world record for the most pieces of art created by one person. Over 78 years, he produced over 13,500 paintings or designs, 100,000 prints or engravings, 34,000 book illustrations, and 300 sculptures or ceramics. This brings the grand total to over 147,800 pieces of art
He has so much work that it can be divided and defined many ways; by periods ( the blue period, cubism), by years ( for example 1932 is his “year of wonder”), or by medium (paintings, prints, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, book illustrations, theatre sets, poetry, plays, and costumes).
My Hot Take
Botero is the new Next Picasso!
Okay, we’ve arguably been in our Picasso “era” for 50 years, and for the record I DO NOT think that his market will diminish or decline any time soon. But are we ready for a new, dramatic dead male artist to take the stage? Is there room in the market and an appetite for something new? Art tends to be quite fashionable and we all love the “next, new cool thing.” We as humans are also sort of short sighted about the big picture in terms of time; we seem to be obsessed with our 75 year stretch of time in life, failing to acknowledge that art and humanity lives on for HUNDREDS and THOUSAND of years. SO when I make this statement, I mean maybe in the next 50-100 years, we will see Botero become the next heavy hitter in art history. Think bigger, or should I say longer, everyone!
This season, Botero also commanded his highest price at auction ever. We are now seeing his work being sold for double or more of the estimated price, which is not something we were consistently seeing even in September of this same year (before he died).
I will explore this further in Part 2. In the meantime, if you want to read about my discovery of Botero click here.
Thanks for tapping in to my tiny art world. If you would like to discuss anything art-related, would like to learn more about a specific art topic or have feedback—send me an email by replying to this story. I will add helpful links below, and if you love me you will share this with someone who would enjoy it.
Yours Truly,
Amédée
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