Still Going

G.p pal Genevieve Smith has a piece in Portfolio on an upcoming Christie's auction that will include a major Clyfford Still painting, 1946 [PH-182]:

Given the rarity of such an event, one might expect a startlingly high price for 1946. Yet the current record holder, 1947-R-no. 1, which was auctioned in November 2006, fetched a relatively paltry $21.3 million. Christie's has priced 1946 (PH-182) at $8 million to $12 million. But "it could very well exceed our estimates," says Christie’s senior contemporary art specialist Robert Manley, overseer of both sales.

Still's prices have lagged in part because there's been such a limited supply of his work to fuel interest. At his death, in 1980, only 150 of Still's paintings were in circulation—most in permanent museum collections, with as few as 25 in private hands. "They are Vermeer rare," says Dean Sobel, director of the new Clyfford Still Museum, which will open in Denver in 2010.

[ . . . ]

The Denver Art Museum previewed a selection from Still's estate last summer, marking the first time many art historians and collectors laid eyes on some of his major works. The show was so popular, drawing 100,000 visitors, that the museum extended it through November.

The upcoming Christie's sale will be the first since the Denver preview, and though it certainly won't be the last, the sale will prove whether it whetted collectors' appetites for more. While the 13 works in the preview, like the rest of the estate, will never be up for sale, the attention the museum will bring to Still's work might mean that the timing is right to invest in a piece like 1946.

Read the whole thing for more on Still's commercial history. As far as valuation is concerned, there's a perfect storm of anticipation about Still's never-before-seen work and a "relaxing" of the art market, with speculation declining and trust in reliable figures driving sales. (More on that later.)

Aesthetically speaking the timing is "right" for Still, too. It always seems to be. One decade after another, in context, his work continues to be important but moreover abundantly relevant.

Posted by Kriston at April 10, 2008 11:22 AM