On October 8, Bloomberg ran a story on the Frieze Art Fair in London that will preview next Wednesday and open officially on Thursday and run through Sunday. Always a major event in the art world, this year’s Frieze Art Fair will be a big test to see whether the art market is definitely in a state of recovery.
One major event to follow at Frieze this year is the sale of Francis Bacon’s Study from the Human Body after Muybridge (1988), which is expected to fetch USD 9 million. Following a major valuation step-up at the height of the recent art market boom of 2007-2008, Francis Bacon currently has 44 works in Skate’s Top 1000, and he is listed as Skate’s 5th most valuable artist overall with a market capitalization in our ranking of USD 636,110,982. Below we present two tables containing peer groups of Bacon works; the first covers his “Human Body” paintings and the second his works that have sold in a similar price range of USD 8-10 million.
Exhibit 1 – Peer Group for Francis Bacon’s “Human Body”
| Study from the Human Body, Man Turning on the Light |
14.10.2007 |
16,465,701 |
|
| Studies of the Human Body |
08.05.2001 |
8,585,750 |
Exhibit 2 – Peer Group for Francis Bacon (USD 8-10 million)
| Portrait of George Dyer staring into a mirror |
23.06.2005 |
8,994,169 |
|
| Study from Portrait of Pope Innocent X by Velazquez |
08.02.2006 |
9,016,584 |
|
| Self-portrait |
08.02.2006 |
9,016,584 |
|
| Landscape with car |
20.06.2007 |
8,490,853 |
|
| Studies of the Human Body |
08.05.2001 |
8,585,750 |
Source: www.skatepress.com
More interesting than yet another entry by Bacon into Skate’s Top 1000 (entry is subject to disclosure of any sales commissions) is the greater market context – the fact that Study from the Human Body after Muybridge is being sold at an art fair rather than at auction. Twenty-one works of art have been sold for more than USD 8 million in 2009, all of them taking place during last spring’s auctions. The fact that the Pavilion of Art & Design London fair, the satellite to the Frieze Art Fair where the Bacon painting will be offered, will carry the highest-valued sale yet this fall very likely serves as another reminder of just how much the market has turned toward the buyer – regardless of what happens later this fall at the major art auctions. Buyers to a certain degree remain skittish about what they perceive as still high auction house estimates and the high premiums that come on top of hammer prices. It is quite possible that dealers have recognized this and will continue to find ways of offering high caliber works like Study from the Human Body after Muybridge at art fairs, which present fewer transaction costs. It is a trend worth following.
As for the dealer side, in the words of Gerard Faggionato, the London-based dealer offering the Bacon work who is quoted in the Bloomberg story, “There’s been a change from galleries asking who they want to sell to, to collectors asking who they want to buy from… People will wake up next week. Everybody’s waiting to see what will happen.”
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