New York Auction Week Review: Logos and Alternatives

The Logo Premium: New York Auction Week Review

A million bucks clearly isn't what it used to be. Let's analyze the New York auction week’s sales through one lot that I watched sell live in Sotheby’s new saleroom at the Breuer building on Madison.

The lot was an iPad drawing by David Hockney, The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven), which sold for $762,000 on an estimate of $100,000–$150,000. It was roughly 55 by 41.5 inches and edition 15/25. It was one of eight Woldgate iPad prints, all editions 15/25. The low price of the group was $215,900 and the high price was achieved twice, $762,000. This series has seen a large increase in demand, likely based on the Fondation Louis Vuitton show which showcased multiple iPad works, as well as a flight to works like these more generally.

The Hockney prints exemplify buying a brand, rather than buying art. Don’t get me wrong, they are lovely things, printed beautifully, with a known quantity available. Hockney is one of the best artists of the last 75 years, without question. But these editioned iPad drawings have gotten to a price level that warrants an updated evaluation.

To see one of these next year at a dinner party quickly signals: expensive, bright, fun, tech-embracing, whimsical. They look decent. They’re instantly recognizable. But imagine the horror if you visited a friend’s house and they had the same one? Maybe they had even paid a quarter what you paid for it, five years earlier?

In October, the Arrival of Spring series was repriced by a dedicated auction of 17 Woldgate iPad prints in London, generating about $8.35m total, with 100% sell through. The headline record, The Arrival of Spring… 19 February, sold for £762,000 (≈$1.02m), more than 3× its estimate, becoming the record price for any Hockney print.

The trajectory of these prints, take 19 May for example, is fantastic. Only nine years ago, the identical object sold for about $38,000. In October, it sold for over $700,000. That’s a clean 20x. In 10 years, doubling your money is very solid.

Sitting there in the sale room, it was a fascinating experience to see pure image premium play out live. Dealers often talk about a particular series or image commanding a premium over others – for Lois Dodd it’s the windows, for Sylvia Plimack Mangold it’s floors and rulers, for Wayne Thiebaud it’s cakes, pies, and desserts, for Jana Euler it might be the power outlets. But all of the iPad drawings sold at the Sotheby’s day sale were from the series The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate. They were all iPad drawings printed in colors on wove paper; they were all the same size; and they were all Edition 15/25 in every case – same edition number, same source, same production run. The only thing the market is really pricing here is which JPEG people like best.

The reason I am not going out to buy Hockney iPad drawings, despite the great trajectory they are following, is that Hockney prints have no X-factor. They are not AI companies that may or may not become 10 times more valuable in the future despite currently trading at 100 Shiller PE ratio. They are editioned prints that have some value, and a ton of demand, but likely a ceiling. So what were better items to buy? I’ll get to that.

Secondly, unlike equities, which benefit so much from passive flows into the indexes which contain the largest companies, the art market has no passive flows. Part of the reason this market is such a moving target, and such an interesting target, is all participants are effectively active managers and retail investors. Sure, there are people who support various markets, but there are no literal passive flows, as much as it would look that way when all of the brand-name recognizable work gets gobbled up.

The Macro View

After the major New York auction week concluded, the results reflected well the current state of play: blue-chip demand was healthy, and a lot of blue-chip offerings were present; prints and editions did well; middle market was selective as it should be, but functional (like a real market); younger/speculative was shaky, which probably shouldn’t ever have existed at all anyways at the level it was during 2021–2022.

We are in a state right now that seems to lean positive, but still has background anxiety lurking. Off of the high highs of 2021–2022, interest rates rose sharply, taking some speculative participants quickly out of the market, cratering the secondary market for hyper contemporary and leaving the art market in a place that seems to be more healthy, which is a picky marketplace for highly subjective goods.

We are clearly in a K-shaped economy now, where those at the very top will thrive based on technological advancement and ability to cost cut. The equities markets are obviously in a K shape as well, to the frustration of the active managers out there. I see some parallels to the art market worth mentioning, but enough divergence to make it very interesting. Of course, there are the mag 7 equivalents in the art world (Picasso, Warhol, Basquiat, Richter, Rothko, Kusama, Hockney), but it is a bit broader and has been so for much longer. Additionally, the “Active” side of the equation is still strong. The reevaluation of the art historical canon is too rewarding and exciting to lose steam, especially as more people participate in the market.

There are great companies in the value space of the stock market just like there are in the art auction market. With a lot of the biggest names taking up the bids at auction, there are fantastic opportunities to buy strong art that is slightly overlooked. And this is different than in the stock market, as these artworks have a real chance of getting their day in the sun. There are no passive flows from indexes in the art market, which keep the biggest firms getting bigger in the stock market and make it hard for value stocks to do well, as active managers like David Einhorn complain about. Being active in art can be very fruitful and profitable, both in dollars and visual enjoyment—you just have to know where to look.

What I Would Have Bought Instead

From the same Sotheby’s day sale:

Lot 305: Larry Bell, Cube #20 (2006)
Glass coated with Inconel and clear glass on Plexiglas base
58⅛ by 20 by 20 in. (147.6 by 50.8 by 50.8 cm)
Estimate: $40,000–$60,000 · Sold: $50,800

A Bell cube in blue. These are beautiful objects—light, color, presence—and this one went for a fraction of the Hockney.

Lot 202: Richard Mayhew, Essence (1975)
Oil on canvas
36 by 36 in. (91.4 by 91.4 cm)
Estimate: $50,000–$70,000 · Sold: $266,700

For a landscape that is a real painting, a bit more conceptual. This did 5× its low estimate—deservedly.

Lot 428: Roy Lichtenstein, Brushstroke Abstraction II (1996)
Acrylic, oil and graphite on canvas
30⅛ by 27⅛ in. (76.5 by 68.9 cm)
From the Collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein
Estimate: $180,000–$250,000 · Sold: $533,400

Brushstroke abstraction somewhat resembles 1950s de Kooning, nice composition, super recognizable. Larger than the Hockney.

Lot 579: Stanley Whitney, First Fire (2009)
Oil on linen
60 by 60 in. (152.4 by 152.4 cm)
Estimate: $280,000–$350,000 · Sold: $609,600

Great composition as well for less. This painting is literally twice the size of the Hockney iPad print, at a comparable price.

Lot 419: Roy Lichtenstein, Plus and Minus VI (1988)
Acrylic, oil and graphite on canvas
50 by 38 in. (127 by 96.5 cm)
From the Collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein
Estimate: $350,000–$450,000 · Sold: $406,400

Having just seen the Mondrians off of which these Lichtensteins are based at the Kunstmuseum in The Hague, this Lichtenstein stuck out as a slightly less recognizable but very cool work.

There is nothing like a unique object. With such good options across a spectrum of art styles at auction, spending that much on a digital print is a big whiff. I gave highly recognizable choices as alternatives above, but there are even further levels of great art beyond the house favorites. For example, I bought the Catherine Murphy at Bonhams—a singular realist American painter with great museum comps and a strong gallery. More thoughts on what I’m seeing down here in Miami to come.