HYPE AT AUCTION

BRINGING HOME THE BACON | February 24th 2008

Sotheby's

Prices are going up for contemporary art, but will these works still be so fashionable--and saleable--in 25 years? Stephen Fay examines the lasting value of work by Francis Bacon ...

From ECONOMIST.COM*

A new book by an economist named Don Thompson entitled "The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art and the Auction Houses" ought to be required reading for collectors intending to wade into well publicised contemporary art auctions like the one Sotheby's will host on February 27th. It ought to be, but it won't, because it is out of tune with the hype that accompanies these sales.

Two of Mr Thompson's observations are particularly telling. First, only half of the modern and contemporary artists listed in Christie's and Sotheby's catalogues 25 years ago are now offered at any major auction. And second, of the 1,000 artists who had serious gallery shows in London and New York during the 1980s, only 20 were shown in comparative venues in 2007.

No doubt Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons are phenomena of the sale room, but will they still be so fashionable--and saleable--in 25 years? There remain today just a few painters known in the trade as "modern masters", including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollack, Lucien Freud plus one more painter whose credentials have been confirmed in the past two years--Francis Bacon.

Christie's was faintly disappointed when an excellent Bacon triptych sold on February 6th for £23.5m ($46.3m). Their estimate was around £25m which would have beaten the record price for a Bacon, received for "Study from Innocent X", which Sotheby's sold for $47m in May 2007.

This may prove to be an early hint of a softening in the market, but it did no harm to Bacon's reputation. In 2007 his paintings had their best-ever year at auction and put him in third place in Artprice's list of artists ranked by revenue; seven canvasses by Bacon fetched more than $10m apiece between February and December 2007.

Sotheby's is selling just one Bacon this month: "Study of Nude with Figure in a Mirror" (pictured above). Bacon painted it in 1969, during one of his most productive periods when he was a familiar figure in the pubs, restaurants and drinking clubs of Soho. The subject is a contorted nude with a skull-like face lying on a bed or a board against a striking purple background.

She is spied upon by an anonymous voyeur, whom Bacon deliberately distorted by drawing a rag across the wet paint of the man's facial features. Here the background is plain blue.

There is a lot of technique and not much romance in this painting, but when you have looked at it for a while, you are unlikely ever to forget it. John Russell, an art critic, wrote: "We are left wondering if natural life--life as it is actually lived out, without packaging--has ever been portrayed more completely in painting." If that is the case, this Bacon painting is a great advertisement for packaging.

This piece has been sent to market by its owner ("a distinguished private collector") because of the price inflation in Bacon's paintings. "This would never have been sold at auction if it wasn't going to achieve £18m," says Alexander Branczik, a contemporary art specialist at Sotheby's, which is selling it with a guaranteed floor (presumably £18m). If Bacon were still around, the distinguished collector would owe him a drink.

Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Auction will be held in New Bond Street on February 27th at 7pm.

(*Art.view is published every week on Economist.com. Stephen Fay is a journalist based in London, and author of the book "Tom Graveney at Lord's".)