MIAMI BEACH—Coming close on the heels of the major New York auctions of Impressionist/modern and postwar/contemporary art, Art Basel Miami Beach is one place to look for the effects of these sales, where some masterpieces brought spectacular sums but many works went for fire-sale rates. Some market observers have predicted that dealers will be making price changes and other adjustments in response to the disappointing auctions, where prices in many cases returned to 2006 levels.

Paul Gray, proprietor of Chicago- and New York–based Richard Gray Gallery, says that his gallery owns most of the works in its ABMB booth, so they were able to bring prices down to reflect the market’s new realities. To keep prices high, he says, would have sent the wrong message: “It sends an arrogant message to buyers if you seem to not care about selling.”

Gray adds that the difference between the current correction and the one that occurred in the early ’90s is that now “people are more willing to adjust their expectations.” In his booth a small Robert Mangold painting, Study Attic Series III (1990), which he says ordinarily would have been priced at $275,000, is being offered for $200,000, and a small Roy Lichtenstein drawing, Preliminary Study for "Modern Painting with Wedge" (1967), which would have been $165,000, is now $125,000. The priciest artwork on his stand is a Robert Motherwell, at $3.25 million. The estate that consigned the piece to Gray originally wanted to ask for more, but Gray managed to talk them down. 

Gray doesn’t think the recent auctions were unsuccessful, but rather believes we may simply see the market “return to sanity.” Lots of buyers have been priced out during the boom, especially in response to runaway auction totals. “What hasn’t been as obvious is how much the collector base has shrunk in response to prices rising,” he says. 

But in these straightened times, will collectors look for blue-chip artists or more emerging names? Gray says he’s not sure, and so he’s brought a mix, joking that the booth might therefore look a bit “schizophrenic.” Tellingly, the pieces arrayed on the outside walls of his stand, which face the fair entrance, strike a balance between the two. They are all by a well-known and desirable artist whose works rarely hit the block — David Hockney, whose prices at auction run into the millions of dollars — but, being a new series of computer-produced prints in editions of 25, they are priced, at $9,500 apiece, in a range more suitable to emerging artists.

Return to Tradition
Despite the disappointing totals, one thing that the recent auctions proved to dealers is that masterpieces, like the Malevich Suprematist Composition that went for $60 million at Sotheby’s, are still selling at high prices. Next door to Gray, at the booth of the Swiss Galerie Gmurzynska, is a small Picasso drawing from 1905/06, a study for the artist's iconic 1906 painting Boy Leading a Horse. The drawing, says Gmurzynska's Mathias Rastorfer, has an excellent provenance — it has changed hands only twice since it was made — and it’s priced at $6 million. Which is not a penny less, he says, than it would have been at last year’s fair. Rastorfer says he hasn't seen an adjustment in “classic modern” material yet, citing the recent records at auction. He also points out another market issue during tough times is that works are slower to come up for sale. 

Rastorfer says that though the auction houses have done well during a time of incredible demand, they have also made the system vulnerable, whereas dealers are engaged in “a long-term project.” He foresees “lots of people coming back to traditional ways of doing business.” As for Art Basel, he thinks many collectors will look to modern material rather than rushing for the newest art, as has been their m.o. in recent years.

Auction Standouts
Despite their low overall numbers, there were a few standouts in the recent auctions. One was Joseph Cornell's Pharmacy, a box from 1943 that sparked a bidding war at Christie’s before selling for $3,778,500 (est. $1.5–2 million). At ABMB, New York gallery L&M Arts, which has worked with the Cornell estate, has a whole wall of exquisite boxes and collages by the artist, priced from $100,000 to $285,000.