20th-Century Design

Christie's

A 1969 silver-and-lacquer bracelet by Lucio Fontana sold for $68,500 at Christie's.

Wright and Brian Franczyk Photography

At $276,000, a 15-foot-tall Sonambient sculpture (c. 1970) by Harry Bertoia was the top lot at Wright.

Wright
622 lots offered
$6,169,651 sold total
40 percent unsold by value
42 percent unsold by lot

Phillips
219 lots offered
$5,585,375 sold total
30 percent unsold by value
42 percent unsold by lot

Christie's
Important French Bronze and Ivory Figures
18 lots offered
$2,135,750 sold total
15 percent unsold by value
22 percent unsold by lot
Important 20th-Century Decorative Art & Design
277 lots offered
$4,974,125 sold total
23 percent unsold by value
36 percent unsold by lot

Sotheby's
148 lots offered
Total $7,408,250
27.6 percent unsold by value
37.2 percent unsold by lot

Ron Arad Lucio Fontana Gio Ponti George Nakashima Isamu Noguchi Harry Bertoia Marianne Brandt Wendell Castle

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There were moments of stunned silence as buyers sat on their paddles for highly anticipated lots, while other works sold to lone absentee bidders or struggled to make estimates. The few high-performing exceptions buoyed the bottom lines, which were still, except at Phillips, substantially leaner than a year ago. A number of objects by such major names as Ruhlmann, Royère, Perriand and Prouvé failed to generate the usual buzz, and even several Tiffany and Nakashima offerings passed.

In Chicago, Wright’s sales filled two days, May 18 and 20, and three catalogues. Overall, there were hardly any surprises, and most prices hovered just around estimates. A Harry Bertoia circa 1970 Sonambient sculpture (est. $300–400,000) was the top lot at a mere $276,000. A unique Carlo Mollino bed, made in 1944 from Italian fruitwood, lacquered wood and brass (est. $100–150,000), brought $120,000, and two low-backed upholstered lounge chairs from 1954 (est. $30–40,000 each) garnered $72,000 and $36,000. A major disappointment was Louis Kahn’s Esherick House, in Philadelphia (est. $2–3 million), which despite considerable interest, did not draw even one bid. This failure followed close on the heels of the stunted sale at Christie’s of Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House in Palm Springs (est. $15–25 million) at its May 13 sale of postwar and contemporary art. That property just met the low estimate, selling for $16.8 million, but the contract was later terminated.

Phillips, leading off the New York sales on June 12, showed its commitment to the cutting edge in a diverse lineup that produced equally diverse results. The most sought-after items included a 1987 Nakashima bed with a burled-oak headboard (est. $80–120,000), won by the New York dealer Tony Delorenzo for $247,000 after protracted bidding, and a circa 1950 Jean Prouvé desk with yellow-painted steel drawers (est. $40–50,000), which drew multiple phone bids, eventually going for $181,000. A collection of 19 pieces by the 20th-century British ceramist Lucy Rie generated some of the liveliest bidding. All sold above their estimates, including a rare blue vase, circa 1935 (est. $25–30,000), which sold for $43,000 to the New York architect and designer Lee Mindel. He also picked up a two-piece, 192-inch-long Nakashima conference table, circa 1968 (est. $90–120,000), for $145,000 on behalf of a California client.

Prices for recent works varied. Among the top lots were three pieces by Ron Arad, led by a prototype of his steel Two Legs and a Table, circa 1990 (est. $200–300,000). It went to the Belgian collector Alex Brotmann for $241,000, just short of the record £120,500 ($244,000) achieved by another in October 2007 at Christie’s London. One of Jeroen Verhoeven’s multilayered plywood Cinderella tables, made in 2005 (est. $140–180,000), brought $253,000. (Another sold at Sotheby’s New York in December 2006 for a modest $42,000. The spike in price at Phillips was surely helped by the table’s recent addition to the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum).

The star of the day was a Marc Newson desk designed for a Tokyo recording studio in 1996 (est. $160–240,000), which sold for $313,000. Interest in its companion console and shelves was nil. Other noteworthy lots that fell flat were a rare Diamond sofa, circa 1953, by Gio Ponti (est. $100–120,000), and a pair of companion chairs (est. $120–140,000); a wall-mounted aluminum-and-oak bookshelf unit by Perriand (est. $400–600,000); and a silver-plated brass-and-ebony tea service by the Bauhaus designer Marianne Brandt (est. $250–350,000).

The first of two sessions at Christie’s on June 13 comprised a private collection of 18 French Art Deco figurines. The two highest earners, both by Demetre Chiparus, the most renowned sculptor of this genre (est. $250–350,000 and $120–180,000), sold for $290,500 each. In the main sale that followed, established names did best. Three rare designs by Jean-Michel Frank were particularly noteworthy. A wrought-iron desk frame, 1925–30 (est. $60–80,000), brought $506,500 even though the accompanying drawers and leather top were of later vintage, and two 1925 iron-and-leather armchairs made for the vicomte de Noailles, one of Frank’s most celebrated clients (est. $150–200,000 each), sold to the same anonymous buyer for $194,500 and $170,500. A 1906 bronze-and-wood pedestal table by John Scott Bradstreet (est. $350–550,000), one of four known examples (two are in museums, and the third sold at Sotheby’s New York in June 2004 for $344,000), achieved a record $386,500.

Mostly sedate, the pace of the sale picked up when seven pieces by the idiosyncratic sculptors Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne came on the block. The costliest, Rhinocéros Mécanique, 1976, a 9¾-inch-high copper sculpture with hidden compartments (est. $24–35,000), went for $98,500. But the most enthusiastic bidding of the day was for a collection of 20 pieces of 1960s avant-garde Italian jewelry, all of which found buyers. A silver-and-lacquer bracelet by Lucio Fontana (est. $8–12,000) fetched the top price, $68,500.

Several major items passed, including big-ticket lots by Ponti, Diego Giacometti and Zaha Hadid. Summing up the day, Nicholas Kilner, the department’s head of sale, says, “The really good things did well, but people are less willing to take chances on the middle ground.”

Sotheby’s played it safe—and smart—on June 14 with a tight auction of just 150 lots, including 25 Nakashima and 16 Tiffany pieces, most of them new to the market and carrying conservative estimates. The result was the best sales total of the season: $7,408,250.

The Saturday-morning event drew a good crowd and mostly lively bidding, although, as at all the sessions, several choice offerings disappointed. The top lot was an unusual circa 1905 Apple Blossom table lamp by Tiffany (est. $250–350,000). Competitive bidding drove the price up to a surprising $932,500, a record for the model at auction, paid by an anonymous longtime Tiffany collector.

The other key Tiffany offerings were a circa 1910 Wisteria table lamp (est. $500–700,000), which went to Adriana Friedman, of Delorenzo, for $602,500, a bargain compared with the Wisteria that brought a record $881,000 in last December’s sale at Sotheby’s New York, and a circa 1910 Dragonfly table lamp (est. $120–180,000), which went to the New York consultant Barbara Deisroth for $230,500. Some Tiffany objects, however, fell flat, including an exceptional Magnolia floor lamp (est. $700–900,000) and a rare 1890s oak armchair (est. $180–240,000).

Another unexpected failure was a pair of 1949 Prouvé lacquered-steel porthole doors (est. $100–150,000) identical to those that brought $680,000 at Sotheby’s New York in 2004. A smaller but similar aluminium pair (est. $70–90,000 each) sold at Phillips the previous day for $85,000 apiece. “It just goes to show how fickle the market is,” says the department head, James Zemaitis.

There was more demand for museumworthy industrial-art objects. Two persistent bidders competed for a circa 1930 aluminum-and-wood locomotive sculpture by the brothers Jan and Joël Martel, which finally went to a French collector for $386,500 (est. $70–90,000). Another pair of bidders pushed the price for a rare circa 1930 zebra-hide armchair with metal arms by Paul Frankl (est. $20–30,000) to a stunning $230,500. One of the most highly anticipated lots, an Isamu Noguchi prototype aluminum table made for the Aluminum Corporation of America in 1957, brought $290,500 (est. $100– 150,000). (Only two pairs are known to exist, and the mate to this one sold at Wright in December 2006 for $132,000.)

The day’s—and the season’s—prize Nakashima was a 1989 Conoid dining table (est. $70–90,000), which went for $266,500. Four sculptural wood pieces by Wendell Castle fetched two or three times their high estimates, most notably a two-seat walnut sofa from 1967 (est. $40–60,000) that made $152,500. “People bought what looked good,” says Zemaitis, “and what could actually be used.”

Winding up the sale was a prefabricated pavilion made by the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban in 2007 as an exhibition space for the Finnish furniture producer Artek (est. $800,000–1.2 mil­lion). The 131-foot-long structure sold for $602,500 to the New York gallery Sebastian + Barquet, which also bought Noguchi’s Alcoa table. (The three-year-old gallery’s high-profile purchases include Newson’s Lockheed Lounge prototype at Sotheby’s in June 2006 for a then-record $968,000.)

Evan Snyderman, of the New York gallery R 20th Century, sees the ups and downs of the current market as part of a growth process. “Design is still the Wild West,” he says. John Sollo, of Sollo Rago Modern Auction, seems to agree. “People may be jittery, but it’s not over,” he says. “There’s still lots of great stuff out there, waiting to be discovered.”

"20th-Century Design" originally appeared in the September 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2008 Table of Contents.