Style Investing
Undefined
Style Investing
Published: April 12, 2011
STYLE INVESTING
By Roman Kraeussl
Published: March 1, 2011
With Asian art the focus of this issue, we decided to take a look at how modern and contemporary Asian works stack up against other styles when it comes to return on investment. To do so, we compared and index of the auction sales of paintings from that catagory— comprising art from China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia (some upcoming lots from New York’s Asia Week are pictured below)—with those for Old Masters, Impressionists and modern, postwar and contemporary, and American. Each index is compiled from sales data for the 100 hottest artists in the style, gleaned from dozens of auction houses worldwide, and based at 100 in 1985. A quick glance at the indexes shows that Asian art performed phenomenally until 2008. While the average annual return generated by the postwar and contemporary index is 19 percent and between 10 and 15 percent for the non-Asian styles, the annual average for Asian art is a spectacular 27 percent.
PAST AND UCOMING PRIZES AT AUCTION 1. Paul Cézanne’s Maisons dans la verdure, circa 1879–1882, brought $7.7 million at Christie’s London in June 2006. 2. Sayed Haider Raza’s Prakriti, 2000, is estimated at $500,000 to $700,000 in the Sotheby’s New York Indian Contemporary Art sale on March 25. 3. Vasudeo S. Gaitonde’s Untitled, 1987, is expected to bring $300,000 to $500,000 in Christie’s New York South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art sale on March 23. 4. Willem de Kooning’s Untitled, 1984, brought $5.5 million at Phillips de Pury & Co. in London in June 2008. 5. Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s 16th- to 17th-century The Alchemist sold for $1.4 million at Lempertz, in Cologne, last November.
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MODERN AND COMTEMPORARY ASIAN ART
This index resembles that of a high-return tech stock. The Chinese painters Zao Wou-Ki, Zhang Xiaogang, and Zeng Fanzhi are some of the best performers overall, in terms of prices earned and volume sold, while Francis Newton Souza, Maqbool Fida Husain, and Sayed Haider Raza are three of the titans of 20th-century Indian art. Japanese talents Yayoi Kusama and Yoshitomo Nara are among the dozen or so artists that cross categories, selling in dedicated Asian-art sales and general contemporary-art ones. It should be noted that very few auction records were available for contemporary Asian art before the mid 1990s.
This index resembles that of a high-return tech stock. The Chinese painters Zao Wou-Ki, Zhang Xiaogang, and Zeng Fanzhi are some of the best performers overall, in terms of prices earned and volume sold, while Francis Newton Souza, Maqbool Fida Husain, and Sayed Haider Raza are three of the titans of 20th-century Indian art. Japanese talents Yayoi Kusama and Yoshitomo Nara are among the dozen or so artists that cross categories, selling in dedicated Asian-art sales and general contemporary-art ones. It should be noted that very few auction records were available for contemporary Asian art before the mid 1990s.
POSTWAR AND CONTEMPORARY
The index for this high-profile category, led by Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, and Mark Rothko, shows the most similarities with that of Asian art: Both perform superbly from 2005 to 2008, decline steeply in 2009, and make strong recoveries in 2010.
The index for this high-profile category, led by Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, and Mark Rothko, shows the most similarities with that of Asian art: Both perform superbly from 2005 to 2008, decline steeply in 2009, and make strong recoveries in 2010.
IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN
With such top earners as Picasso, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Henri Matisse, this category is a perennial powerhouse. It did particularly well in the late 1980s, until crashing in ‘91, and like all of the indexes here, generated positive returns in 2010.
With such top earners as Picasso, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Henri Matisse, this category is a perennial powerhouse. It did particularly well in the late 1980s, until crashing in ‘91, and like all of the indexes here, generated positive returns in 2010.
AMERICAN
Comprising 17th- through early 20th-century art and starring such names as Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, and Georgia O’Keeffe, this style saw a modest bump in the early 2000s and has been recovering slowly since 2008.
Comprising 17th- through early 20th-century art and starring such names as Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, and Georgia O’Keeffe, this style saw a modest bump in the early 2000s and has been recovering slowly since 2008.
OLD MASTERS
Canaletto, Pieter Brueghel, Peter Paul Rubens, and Rembrandt top this group, which performs most like safe blue-chip stocks, with modest average annual returns and relatively low volatility.
Canaletto, Pieter Brueghel, Peter Paul Rubens, and Rembrandt top this group, which performs most like safe blue-chip stocks, with modest average annual returns and relatively low volatility.
"Style Investing" originally appeared in the March 2011 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's March 2011 Table of Contents.
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