With buyer confidence rattled by a gauntlet of disturbing economic indicators portending recession, and a weak U.S. dollar stunting purchasing power, the spring sale season poses a crucial question: Can the Impressionist/modern and contemporary art categories survive the jittery financial markets, or will they suffer the same fate as other asset classes that have been unable to find traction in these uncertain times? Answers vary, but a number of observers believe that all the financial negatives may actually combine to benefit the market, with collectors, especially those spending in pounds and euros, seeing fine art as a relatively safe haven in which to park their excess wealth.

Emmanuel Di-Donna, Sotheby’s director of Impressionist and modern evening sales, confirms that blue-chip Impressionist and modern art is in very high demand. “We’re competing not only with Christie’s for property,” he says, “but also with collectors who are very eager to buy, and at aggressive levels, either alone or through agents.” Lots to watch for at Sotheby’s May 7 auction include Fernand Léger’s Cubist masterwork Étude pour “La femme en bleu,” 1912–13 (est. in excess of $35 million), and an Alberto Giacometti bronze, Femme de Venise VIII, conceived in 1958 (est. $8–10 million).

Highlights at Christie’s May 6 auction include a Joan Miró painting, La caresse des étoiles, 1938 (est. $12–16 million), and Kees van Dongen’s full-length 1908 femme fatale, Anita en Almée (est. $12–16 million). Asked about the number of guarantees in the evening sale, Guy Bennett, Christie’s head of Impressionist and modern art, says they are up a bit from last season. “It’s whatever the client wants,” he explains.

As for contemporary art, Tobias Meyer, the worldwide head of that department at Sotheby’s, points to the success of the February sales in London as evidence of the strength of the market. “Great things did fantastically well and were bought and underbid by financially very savvy people who were well aware of the credit crisis and how deep it was,” he says. “They actually take great comfort in buying great quality.” Amy Cappellazzo, Christie’s international cohead of postwar and contemporary art, agrees: “The market is very strong at the high end, and there’s a flight to quality. People absolutely want quality under all and every circumstance.”

Sotheby’s May 14 evening sale of contemporary art features a trove of just such top-tier works consigned by Greenwich publishing magnate Peter Brant. The Brant lots, which are not identified as such in the catalogue, are rumored to be guaranteed for about $80 million. They include Richard Prince’s Millionaire Nurse, 2002 (est. $5–7 million).

The house has also managed to secure what is being billed as the finest Francis Bacon painting remaining in private hands, the ritualistic and bloody Triptych, 1976 (est. around $70 million). The picture was consigned by the family of the late French wine merchant Jean-Pierre Moueix, who acquired it in 1977 from Galerie Claude Bernard, in Paris. Among other featured lots are 21 Pop, Minimalist and Conceptual works from German collectors Helga and Walther Lauffs, such as Donald Judd’s first metal sculpture, Untitled, 1964 (est. $5–7 million). The group is expected to bring a total of more than $47 million.

Christie’s May 13 evening sale contains a choice selection of Abstract Expressionist works from a private American collector, including Mark Rothko’s masterful No. 15, 1952 (est. on request, about $35–45 million), and Sam Francis’s amorphous abstraction Black, 1955 (est. $4–6 million). Of more recent vintage is Jeff Koons’s New Hoover Convertibles, New Shelton Wet/Dry 5-Gallon Doubledecker, 1981–86 (est. $10–15 million), consigned by New York collectors B. Z. and Michael Schwartz.

Koons also makes an appearance at Phillips De Pury & Company, on May 15, with his white marble Self-Portrait, 1991 (est. $6–8 million). Another lot to look for at Phillips is Gerhard Richter’s seven-and-a-half-foot-square Abstraktes Bild (“Abstract Painting”), 1986 (est. $5–7 million).

Roy Lichtenstein
Ball of Twine, 1963
Estimate $14–18 million
Christie’s contemporary

In the early 1960s, when Roy Lichtenstein was painting his signature cartoon frames, he also created a handful of black-and-white “single object” compositions. Drawing on the aesthetic of commercial art, the paintings depict such banal items as a golf ball, a tire, an electric cord—and a ball of twine. Shown in this 1963 picture against a background of Ben­day dots, like those in comic books, the strands, carefully choreographed into a dance of curved, animated lines, have striking graphic power.

The artist created the 40-by-36-inch canvas in what proved to be an extraordinary year for him. Not only was he given debut solo shows at Ferus Gallery, in Los Angeles, and Sonnabend Gallery, in Paris, but he also had his second solo exhibition in New York with Leo Castelli, who sold Ball of Twine to the early Pop art collector Leon Kraushar, of Long Island, for $780. Kraushar later sold it to the German collector Karl Stroher, whose heirs consigned it to the Sotheby’s New York evening sale in November 2001. It was a turbulent economic time, due to the terrorist attacks on September 11, yet the work still fetched a rousing $4.1 million (est. $1.5–$2 million).

Only two Lichtensteins—both painted around the same time as this one—have exceeded $10 million at auction: Sinking Sun, 1964 (est. on request), fetched $15.7 million at Sotheby’s New York in May 2006, and In the Car, 1963 (est. on request), made a record $16.3 million at Christie’s New York in November 2005. Ball of Twine is poised to match or even top those results.

In a now-famous 1963 magazine interview, the artist was asked to define Pop art. He responded: “I don’t know—the use of commercial art as a subject matter in painting, I suppose. It was hard to get a painting that was despicable enough so that no one would hang it,” he continued. “The one thing everybody hated was commercial art.”

Claude Monet
Le pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil, 1873
Estimate on request
Christie’s Imp/mod

The appearance of premium Impres­sionist paintings at auction has become something of a rarity, given the historical significance of the period and the number of museums and private collectors hoarding prime examples. In this climate, Christie’s is aggressively touting Le pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil as a potential record setter. That would require beating the artist’s high of £19.8 million ($33 million), set 10 years ago at Sotheby’s London by Bassin aux nymphéas et sentier au bord de l’eau, painted at Giverny in 1900.

The sellers, the powerful Nahmad art-trading clan, who negotiated a financial guar­antee for the picture, acquired it at Christie’s London in November 1998 for £6.8 million ($12.5 million). It had previously sold at auction at Sotheby’s London in April 1979 for £420,000 ($873,600).

The early publicity surrounding the identity of the consignor is a tad puzzling, considering the Nahmads’ penchant for secrecy and reputation for bare-knuckle dealing in the Impressionist and modern field. Scores of their holdings appear regularly at auction without ownership attribution. Nahmad possession isn’t exactly an esteemed provenance, but few would quarrel with the painting’s pristine condition, wall power and voluminous scholarly references.

Le pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil is one of 170 paintings that Monet made of Argenteuil, a bucolic village that the railroad’s incursion transformed into a Paris suburb, and it delivers a timely view of industrial progress impinging on country life. “This is an absolutely iconic image, truly irreplaceable in today’s market,” says Paul Tucker, the Boston-based Monet scholar and author. “There just isn’t another like it.”

Alberto Giacometti
Portrait de Caroline, 1963
Estimate $10-15 million
Sotheby’s Imp/mod

“My colleagues admonish me, ‘Paint with colors,’” Giacometti, whose oils are dominated by smoky hues, has been quoted as saying. “Isn’t gray a color too?”

Contemporary-art collectors seem to think so, showing their appreciation of works displaying the Swiss-born artist’s minimalist palette by driving prices for his canvases almost to the peaks achieved by his far better-known sculptures. Last November at Christie’s New York, the 1964 painting Annette au manteau (est. $5–7 million) fetched $11.2 million, and this past February at Christie’s London, his Buste, 1947 (est. £2–3 million; $4–6 million), made £5.6 million ($11.2 million). Before those two sales, the highest price for a Giacometti canvas at auction was $3.2 million.

Caroline was the 62-year-old artist’s temperamental 25-year-old brunette muse and lover, whom he reportedly nicknamed Grisaille, in homage to the monochromatic tones of his oil paintings. His 1963 portrait of her—in which his affinity for gray is evident—captures her intense gaze as she sits demurely, her hands folded on her lap. In the lower left corner is a tiny burn hole made by the cigarette Giacometti, a heavy smoker, held in his left hand while painting with his right. Caroline acquired the portrait after Giacometti’s death, in 1966, but sold it later that year to Galerie Claude Bernard, in Paris.

It will be of keen interest this season to compare the sale price of this painting with those of three major Giacometti bronzes being offered: Femme de Venise VIII, 1956 (est. $8–10 million), also at Sotheby’s; Grande femme debo ut II, 1960 (est. on request, about $18–25 million), at Christie’s the previous night; and La place II, conceived in 1948 and cast in 1949 (est. on request, about $12 million), also at Christie’s.

Andy Warhol
Double Marlon, 1966
Estimate on request ($25-35 milion)
Christie’s contemporary

Among the Hollywood legends represented in Warhol’s oeuvre, Marlon Brando turns up relatively rarely. The artist first depicted the actor in 1963, with Silver Marlon, and briefly returned to the subject in 1966, creating just eight versions of the composition, including this one.

The source image for this series was a black-and-white publicity shot from the 1954 film The Wild One that shows Brando in a leather jacket and stiff-brimmed motorcycle cap, posing on his Triumph bike with a race trophy strapped to the handlebars. The film was unexceptional, but Brando created a sensation as the rebellious leader of a motorcycle gang that terrorizes a small American town. In Double Marlon, the right third of the linen canvas is filled with two identical silkscreens of this photograph stacked one on top of the other, while the left two-thirds are completely bare.

The seven-by-eight-foot painting has an all-star provenance, having belonged to Charles Saatchi and, after him, Ronald Lauder, with Larry Gagosian handling several of its transfers of ownership. The anonymous consignor acquired the work in 2001 for approximately $6 million in a private transaction, according to Brett Gorvy, the international cohead of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s; some sources say the deal was brokered by London dealer Ivor Braka.

Double Marlon failed to sell when it first appeared at auction, at Christie’s New York in May 1980. It was more successful in November 1983 at Sotheby’s New York, where Saatchi bought it for $49,500 (est. $60–80,000), and in November 1992, also at Sotheby’s New York, when it was picked up for $935,000 (est. $1–1.25 million).

Several other versions of the composition have appeared at auction, including a single Marlon from 1966 (est. $1.5–2 million), which sold at Sotheby’s New York in May 1999 to Jose Mugrabi for $2.6 million, and a 41-by-46-inch one (est. $4–5 million), which fetched $5 million at Christie’s New York in May 2003.

Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled (Fallen Angel), 1981
Estimate $8-12 milion
Phillips contemporary

In the past year, nine Basquiats have made more than $5 million each at auction; three of those exceeded $10 million. It’s evident that the market is rising for top-notch examples of this artist’s work, and Untitled (Fallen Angel) is certainly top-notch.

Offered by a European collector, the 66 1/8-by-77 ¾-inch canvas has not been widely exhibited in the United States. It displays all the hallmarks of the artist’s immense talent as he emerged from his graffiti days to become a mainstream star. Set against a sky of deep blue, the composition is both madcap and intriguing. A single figure dominates, his outstretched arms spanning the width of the canvas, with viscera and male organ portrayed for all to see. Wings and a spiky halo turn him into an angel that is hardly angelic, with one blackened arm ending in fingers that resemble pitchfork tines and a face that is more gargoyle than Gabriel.

As Basquiat’s oeuvre—abridged by his death, in 1988, at age 27—is cherry-picked by die-hard fans, early gems like this have become rare, and all the more prized. “This is the last call for Basquiat,” says Chelsea secondary-market dealer Christophe van de Weghe. “The great ones aren’t going to be around.”

The performance of Untitled (Fallen Angel) will be influenced in part by the sale price of another first-rate Basquiat at Sotheby’s the night before. Untitled (Prophet I), 1981–82 (est. $9–12 million), consigned by Paris dealer Enrico Navarra, will gauge the thirst of what seems to be an unquenchable market.

Pablo Picasso
Le baiser, 1969
Estimate $10-15 milion
Sotheby's Imp/mod

Picasso painted Le baiser in October 1969, just two years before his death. The 38 1/8-by-51 ¼-inch picture, his last of a subject he revisited throughout his career, shows the grizzled visage of the aged artist with that of his devoted wife and last muse, Jacqueline.

Unlike earlier depictions, this one is predominantly gray and has a decidedly brutal quality. The severely cropped composition reveals only the couple’s heads, shoulders and one of Jacqueline’s upturned breasts. The pair, almost becoming one as their lips and tongues crash together, have startled expressions, as if swept away with a violent passion.

Le baiser is a superb example of the artist’s late period, when he and Jacqueline were living in Mougins, on the French Riviera. Writing about the works from this time in her book Art Can Only Be Erotic, Diana Widmaier Picasso, the artist’s granddaughter, states: “These are not embraces but wrestling matches the sexes have abandoned themselves to. The unleashing of sexual passions is total, a lack of inhibition stamped with bestiality, animality.”

The guaranteed Picasso is one of some 200 lots consigned from the holdings of the late Patsy and Raymond Nasher—among the greatest postwar collectors of modern and contemporary art in America—who acquired the painting in 1985 from Basel dealer Ernst Beyeler. The group of works is being split among four sales at Sotheby’s this month, with the proceeds, expected to be in excess of $30 million, going to benefit the Nasher Sculpture Center, in Dallas.

Robert Rauschenberg
Overdrive, 1963
Estimate $10-15 milion
Sotheby's contemporary

Major Rauschenbergs rarely surface at auction. Certainly, nothing like the large oil and silkscreen-ink Overdrive—one of a handful of the artist’s works that debuted at the Leo Castelli Gallery in October 1963—has ever appeared on the block.

Painted the year that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the complex multi-image work, utilizing some of Rauschenberg’s bravura photography as well as textbook images of songbirds and schematic drawings of timepieces, delivers a sizzling commentary on the United States in that turbulent time. The atmosphere of the era is captured through images of Cold War posturing, space exploration and civil rights demonstrations, reinforced by Rauschenberg’s upside-down placement of the Statue of Liberty at the top of the 84-by-60-inch canvas. The composition contains no fewer than five STOP signs, plus two one way indicators pointing in opposite directions, and conveys more than a hint of autobiography: A transferred photograph shows the street signs at the intersection of Pine and Nassau, a corner close to the artist’s former loft near Wall Street, where Castelli first saw his work and that of Jasper Johns.

Despite the tumult of world events, 1963 was a fantastic year for the artist, who had solo exhibitions at Sonnabend Gallery, in Paris, and Castelli, in New York, as well as his first museum retrospective, at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan, curated by the institution’s dynamo director, Alan Solomon.

Given its rarity and art-historical importance, not to mention its freshness to the market and pristine provenance—the family of the current consignor bought it for $6,500 from Castelli the year it was made—Overdrive is primed to overturn Rauschenberg’s auction record of $10.7 million, set last May at Sotheby’s New York by Photograph, a small 1959 “Combine” painting. Before that, the artist’s high had been $7.3 million, paid for Rebus (now in New York’s Museum of Modern Art) at the same house in April 1991.

"Impressionist/Modern and Contemporary Art" originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's May 2008 Table of Contents.