One down, two to go: with the Aug. 7 Barridoff Galleries auction over, my eyes are squarely on James D. Julia‘s four day run, Aug 25-29, to give a report on the state of the secondary American Art market.
Results on the Barridoff auction appear mixed, with no clear message about the market, save for this: the market for 20th century Photography continues to flourish. Despite what was an impressive pre-auction buzz, there were a fair amount of buy-ins (when the bidding fails to reach the level of the painting’s reserve, or lowest selling price) at the sale, which isn’t unusual even in times of non-recession. But of the 15 lots that consisted of original photographs, 13 sold, with a few over their auction estimates. The top seller in the category was lot 81, Ansel Adams’s (1902-1984) “Reflections”, at $10,920.
The stunner of the sale, though, was a 44″ x 34″ oil on canvas entitled “Two Nudes” by Marguerite Zorach (1887-1968), estimated at 60-90k, it brought 264k. Yowza!
