Contemporary French art is in vogue

Riding on the back of a sector-wide surge in contemporary art prices, the most attractive works of some French artists are now selling for more than a million Euros.

At the beginning of this year, the depressed financial environment fuelled fears that the speculative bubble that the art market had been wrapped up in for several years would finally pop. The first sales at Drouot in February and March 2008 failed to reassure buyers. Paris only perked up after the successful New York sales in May. Overall, market prices for French art have been flat since the beginning of the year but works at the very top of the range still seem to be rising. In the current economic climate, contemporary art remains very speculative and more than ever the exceptional works from market stars are very expensive. This enthusiasm is clearly reflected in the multiplication of million euro bids for contemporary French artists. Artprice has reacted by rating contemporary French artists according to records hit at auction. At the top, only three of them have managed to reach the million euro mark.

TOP 10 French artists still alive by price level

1

€ 2 808 000BOURGEOIS Louise (1911)2€ 1 310 000SOULAGES Pierre (1919)3€ 1 000 000MATHIEU Georges (1921)4€ 800 000RAYSSE Martial (1936)5€ 410 238SZAFRAN Sam (1930)6€ 283 800TEXIER Richard (1955)7€ 276 609LALANNE François-Xavier (1927)8€ 260 000RAYNAUD Jean-Pierre (1939)9€ 220 000BUREN Daniel (1938)10€ 200 000VENET Bernar (1941)

Top of the class is Louise Bourgeois with a bid of $3.6m (€2.8m) in New York in November 2006 for a monumental bronze Spider more than 2 metres high which was cast in 1997. This year in France, she received a bid of €2.5m ($4m) for another spider that was smaller, more recent and in steel, a work that she produced in 2003 at the age of 91. This is proof of the speculation surrounding the oldest French artist: this record simply crowns her most recent piece in an auction. True, her price levels soared another 79% in 2007 and her retrospective at the Tate Modern in London, and subsequently in Paris at the Pompidou Centre, and soon in New York means she currently has an intense media presence.
Pierre Soulages, 89, is second in the rankings. Last December, at Perrin-Royere-Lajeunesse, €1.31m was bid for a two-metre wide painting from 1959. A year earlier in July 2006, he had already reached the million euro mark with another painting from 1959 that went for €1.06m at Sotheby’s. It was essentially during this period that his price levels went up the most: +143% in 2006 alone. This surge applied also to his engravings which represent almost ¾ of sales. Eau-forte II for example went for €3,000 in November at Tajan, compared to €1,000 ten years earlier. Pierre Soulages is one of the rare French artists whose work can be seen in most international museums, in more than 25 countries. This international fame is of course reflected on the markets with 50% of sales proceeds made abroad.
Georges Mathieu is the third artist in the rankings to have reached the million euro mark. At Sotheby’s Paris, during the contemporary art sale on May 26, L’abduction d’Henri IV par l’archevêque Anno de Cologne, a monumental painting from 1958, was sold for €1m. Admittedly, this exceptional sale comes after a rise of 409% in 10 years. His previous record was last December at Perrin-Royere-Lajeunesse (Paris) when Capitulation du Vali Abou Tho was sold for €353,000. In 2007, no less than 20 of his paintings were sold for more than $100,000 at auction. This is a price level that Georges Mathieu had not reached over 10 years between 1994 and 2004.

Just like Louise Bourgeois and Soulages, most of Georges Mathieu’s sales are abroad. This tends to prove that a French artist must make his name internationally before getting top prices at auction. If, like Richard Texier and Jean-Pierre Raynaud, demand is essentially national, price levels for French artists seem to stall at a certain level. Even Robert Combas, whose overall sales proceeds often put him at the top of French artists, fails to make the Top 10 for price levels where the entry level is €200,000.