by Lita Solis-Cohen
maineantiquedigest.com
Like the cluster of Americana sales in New York City every January, there is a week of 20th- and 21st-century design auctions early in December when every segment of this growing market is tested.

There are lesser 20th-century design sales in June and sometimes in September, but the December sales serve as the barometer for the market.

There were no 20th-century design shows in armories to compete with the modern design sales in New York City December 6-10, 2012, which covered a broad spectrum from Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau, including Tiffany to Art Deco, to Bauhaus, Machine Age, Forties and Fifties, Nakashima, and cutting-edge limited-edition art furniture made in the U.S. and Europe.

Unlike the Americana market, modern design is international, involving French, Italian, German, Scandinavian, British, and American design, and the audience is international as well. It is a larger market than Americana, a larger total for the sales.

Richard Wright in Chicago also held sales at the beginning of the week, and it is hard to ignore his stunning catalogs and his $6.2 million total. Smaller sales at Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA), Treadway-Toomey in Chicago, Skinner in Boston, and earlier in the fall at David Rago in Lambertville, New Jersey, and in May at Freeman’s in Philadelphia suggest that the market is even larger than the turnover at the December sales.

Much of the bidding at the sales is on the phones, and on the Internet for lower-priced lots, so it is difficult to figure out the demographics of the buyers. It is safe to say most were Americans. Many of the dealers and designers are New Yorkers, and some of the private bidders have second houses in Colorado, Idaho, and elsewhere. A small band of private collectors bid themselves against the designer/architects and American and French dealers in the salesroom. Some think there is Asian and Saudi Arabian interest in this field.

Adding up the major sales in New York City and including Wright’s $6.2 million and LAMA’s $1.5 million, more than 2200 lots brought roughly $45 million from December 4 through December 10, 2012, and nearly 80% of the offered lots sold. Some sales had higher sold percentages than others.

Christie’s accounted for the lion’s share with a $19.2 million total, thanks to a private collection put together quite recently by interior designer David Kleinberg to furnish the Connecticut house of film and theater producer Scott Rudin. Kleinberg also designed the presale exhibition at Christie’s, and many of those who walked through the rooms wanted to move right in. It was brilliant marketing, with an attractive catalog and reasonable estimates.

The sale of 212 lots brought a total of $10,132,420 and was 97% sold by lot. The Rudin consignment produced the most successful session of the week and attracted the largest crowd and as many phone lines as Impressionist and Modernism sales.

Paul Dupré-Lafon, French decorator to millionaires in the 1940’s, is now a household name. Rudin’s Dupré-Lafon limed oak and parchment coffee table, circa 1940, sold for $486,400 (includes buyer’s premium), more than double its high estimate. Another Paul Dupré-Lafon table from the 1950’s sold for $419,200 to a collector at Sotheby’s two days later. Dupré-Lafon furniture is well made, a good design, and usable. Decorators love it.

Lighting brought enormous prices at every sale all week long. As predicted, the finest Tiffany lamps sold for six- and seven-figure prices, but lighting from the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s brought far more than expected. At Christie’s a pair of nickel-plated Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann wall-mounted lamps, circa 1933, that had hung over Rudin’s bed sold for $408,000 (est. $40,000/60,000).

Anything by the brothers Giacometti, Alberto and Diego, was fought over at Christie’s. A patinated bronze floor lamp by Alberto sold for $273,600. A patinated plaster table lamp designed by both brothers for Jean-Michel Frank went at $114,000, and another similar lamp sold for $156,000; the first was in the Rudin collection, the second from the estate of photographer Horst P. Horst. (Provenance matters.) An Alberto Giacometti patinated plaster vase with a metal liner from the Horst estate sold for $228,000, and a patinated plaster “Chinese” vase, also by Alberto from the Rudin collection, sold for $192,000.

New York City and Paris dealer Cheska Vallois bid with passion and got nearly every one of the above mentioned lots, outbidding French dealer/designer Jacques Grange in the salesroom and numerous bidders on the phones. Vallois was the biggest buyer of Art Deco at all the sales all week.

Lighting and decorative mirrors by the French designer Line Vautrin (1913-1997) moved to a new price level at the Rudin sale. She is known for her invention of Talosel resin, a translucent material that she used with artistry in her decorative work. Such a large quantity of her work had never before come up in America. There were 21 Vautrin mirrors, two lamps, and a chandelier.

A few years ago, Rudin bought half of a Vautrin exhibition held at Galerie Chastel Maréchal in Paris. The chandelier, made of Talosel resin, circa 1958, sold for $192,000. “Double what he paid for it retail in Paris a year ago,” said a reliable source in the salesroom. A lamp with a vase-form base covered with a mosaic of Talosel resin fetched $120,000.

A mirror, 23 1/8″ in diameter, went at $168,000. Another slightly larger (29″ diameter) mirror sold for $144,000, and one smaller (17¼” diameter) went at $108,000. A tiny one, 7¼” across, sold for $60,000 (est. $10,000/15,000). Some buyers wanted a cluster of small mirrors and bought them, one by one, for prices ranging from $13,200 to $192,000 with a good many in the $30,000 to $50,000 range.

There was so much bidding for the Rudin property that the sale went on well past 2 p.m. when the next session at Christie’s should have begun. Andrea Fiuczynski of Christie’s Los Angeles office is a brilliant auctioneer who is not generally slowed down, but there were five bidders, two on the phones and three in the room, vying for the large (50½” x 60″ x 15 7/8″) burl walnut George Nakashima coffee table with four butterfly joints, made of a thick horizontal slice of a large tree. Estimated at $60,000/ 80,000, it sold for $168,000, a new record for Nakashima, topping the $130,500 paid at Phillips in June 2003 for a free-form walnut dining table with butterfly joints, designed by Mira Nakashima in 1992.

Even though it started late, Christie’s other sale of the day did not disappoint, bringing a respectable total of $9,093,340 for 127 of the 159 lots offered for a 79.9% sold total. Tiffany accounted for half of the top lots and for the highest price of the week, $2,032,000, paid by an American private collector on the phone for a magnificent Magnolia leaded glass bronze floor lamp, circa 1910,

underbid in the salesroom by Nancy McClelland of McClelland + Rachen, New York City agents.

A leaded glass landscape window sold for $464,000, and a jeweled golden Dragonfly leaded glass bronze table lamp brought $374,400, a strong price for an appealing form. Louis Comfort Tiffany’s own brass inlaid center table, circa 1883, made early in his career, sold for $262,400.

The patinated bronze garden furniture designed by Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne provoked the most competitive bidding at Sotheby’s sale on Friday, December 9, that totaled $7,608,280 and was 77% sold. The furniture, jardinières, and bird sculptures were created by the Lalannes for the Lila Acheson Wallace Garden at Colonial Williamsburg, completed in 1986. It was the Lalannes’ largest public commission in America.

According to the Sotheby’s catalog, the naturalistic furniture designs were inspired by leaves and tendrils near their home, a former dairy farm on the edge of Fontainebleau forest. The Lalannes also incorporated birds native to the Wallace garden, including the cardinal, the state bird of Virginia. The furniture with a green patina was used outside in the garden, and the gilt bronze armchairs were used in the two interior courts. François-Xavier Lalanne’s three-dimensional robin sculptures were perched in the fountains at each corner of the reflecting pond and on the garden walls. The glazed stoneware pots, cast in relief with snakes, birds, and butterflies, were placed on the walls around the pond. The new Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum will be built on the site of the garden, so the furniture was sent to Sotheby’s for sale.

One lot consisting of four gold-patinated Lalanne armchairs sold for $144,000 to a phone bidder who also paid $39,000 for another matching chair and $42,000 for one more. Another buyer paid $84,000 for a pair.

The green-patinated chairs, used out of doors, brought even higher prices. A pair of armchairs sold for $102,000, another pair for $78,000, and a set of four side chairs made $96,000. Two green benches sold for $102,000 and $114,000. It was the first time a large group of Lalanne furniture appeared in the U.S. auction market, and it was embraced.

Later in the sale, a Lalanne Gingko chair made in 2000, in the shape of a gingko leaf seat and gingko leaf seat-back (est. $7000/9000), sold for $30,000.

Collectors and dealers paid strong prices for the best Nakashima furniture, and a few of his lesser works or works with ambitious estimates failed to sell. A collector in the salesroom paid $69,000, more than twice the high estimate, for a unique bench made of two walnut boards with burled free-form edges and dramatic grain. A dealer in the salesroom paid $54,000 (est. $20,000/30,000) for an English oak coffee table with a free-form top. A Minguren II coffee table, 1979, sold for $51,000 (est. $24,000/32,000).

A pair of Kornblut cases, circa 1972, sold for $81,000 (est. $30,000/50,000). A pair of table lamps, 18″ high, went at $24,000. A woman bidding for New York City dealer Anthony DeLorenzo paid $42,000 for a set of four Conoid chairs and then bought a single one of the same design later in the sale for $8400. A long chair, 1968, sold for $45,000 (est. $12,000/ 18,000), a record for the form.

With a few exceptions, the market for Jean Prouvé seemed slightly weaker than when record prices were paid for Prouvé works at the Robert Rubin sale in January 2003. Some desirable forms performed well this year. A monumental (98″ long) “JIB” light from the Air France Unité d’Habitation, Brassaville, circa 1952, manufactured by Ateliers Jean Prouvé, sold in the salesroom for $72,000 to dealer Michael Benevento of Orange Group, New York City. Prouvé’s Présidence desk from the Palais du Gouvernement, Niamey, circa 1950, sold for $192,000 (est. $70,000/ 90,000) to a phone bidder. Both lots have Rubin as provenance.

The Charlotte Perriand and Jean Prouvé lacquered metal and pine Mexique bookcase from the Maison du Mexique, Cité Universitaire, Paris, circa 1953, manufactured at Ateliers Jean Prouvé, sold for $60,000, considered reasonable for this bookcase with good color. At Wright in Chicago on December 4, a similar bookcase sold for $72,000 (est. $70,000/ 90,000). At Christie’s, an oak and aluminum bookcase sold for $144,000 to Lee Mindel, architect and designer, and an oak, aluminum, and linoleum three-legged dining table sold for $84,000. At the same sale, a Prouvé book shelf, a sideboard, some chairs, and tables failed to sell.

At Phillips on December 8, a black Trapèze table of metal and wood from Cité Universitaire, Antony, circa 1951, sold for $273,600 (est. $250,000/ 350,000). From the collection of Alexander von Vegesack, an armchair with a writing arm from the faculté de droit, Université d’Aix Marseille, circa 1952, sold for $66,000 (est. $60,000/ 80,000) to a French dealer in the salesroom. Another French dealer, who left a bid with the auctioneer, paid $108,000 for a Jean Prouvé Cité armchair, circa 1933, designed for the Cité Université in Nancy.

Sotheby’s offered the Eric Brill collection of Donald Deskey furnishings designed for the Richard H. Mandel house in Bedford Hills, New York, and sold most of it within estimates, but the lighting was fought over with gusto and brought a premium. A collection of Warren McArthur furniture sold at the low estimates with half a dozen lots failing to sell, suggesting that the taste for Machine Age edge may be on the wane. Frank Gehry’s cardboard furniture is a hard sell and failed to sell at Sotheby’s and Phillips.

Property from the Frank house in Pittsburgh did not sell as well as expected. The Marcel Breuer dining chair, manufactured by Schmieg & Kotzian, made of pearwood-veneered plywood, failed to find a buyer (est. $30,000/50,000). A collector bought the important armchair by Breuer for a relatively low $60,000. In the same sale, a Teddy Bear chair by the Campana brothers, Fernando and Humberto, sold for $66,000 (est. $8000/12,000). A hard-to-find Isamu Noguchi pierced table of galvanized steel, 1982-83, number 4 from an edition of 18, sold for $90,000 (est. $30,000/40,000) to a phone bidder.

Prototype art furniture brought big prices. Phillips got $296,000 for the 2012 prototype Aqua Table by Zaha Hadid on one left bid at its low estimate, $250,000. Alexander Payne, Phillips’ director of design art of the 20th and 21st centuries, called Hadid “the Corbusier of the twenty-first century.” Also at Phillips, New York City dealer Cristina Grajales paid $186,000 (est. $100,000/150,000) for Marc Newson’s 1988 prototype Black Hole table, made of black carbon fiber, outbidding a phone bidder. The La Farge chair made of black oxidized woven steel wire, resembling a tangle of yarn, by Forrest Myers, sold for $46,800 (est. $20,000/25,000) to a phone bidder. All three prices were records for the artists.

Alexander Payne puts together stunning catalogs and curated a well-designed exhibition in the dramatic loft space overlooking the Hudson River at 15th Street and 10th Avenue where Phillips holds its sales. He managed to sell $4.3 million worth of 20th-century design and set records for seven artists in all.

Among the successes was a Carlo Mollino dining table and four chairs from the Pavia Restaurant, Cervinia, circa 1954, that sold for $198,000 to Cristina Grajales, New York City dealer. Tord Boontje’s prototype for the Come Rain Come Shine chandelier sold for $16,800 to a collector in the salesroom, who said it was a bargain price compared to what they sell for retail. Joe Colombo’s Personal Container, circa 1964, a mahogany, chrome-plated metal, brass, and velvet box, 71½” x 94 1/8″ x 8 5/8″ when open and fully extended, with turntable and radio, drawers and shelves, and a ladder, sold for $78,000, a record for the artist. A rare Denham MacLaren armchair, circa 1930, estimated to sell at most for $20,000, sold for $55,200 on the phone, a record for the British designer.

Lighting was also strong. Serge Mouille’s steel Signal lamp, 71 1/8″ high, sold for $114,000 (est. $50,000/70,000) to Cristina Grajales in the salesroom, underbid by a museum.

The morning sale offered furniture from the collection of Alexander von Vegesack, one of the most influential figures in the design world. His exhibition Bentwood and Metal Furniture for the American Federation of Arts brought him to America 30 years ago where he met Charles Eames, who introduced him to Rolf Fehlbaum, CEO of Vitra, who was planning to set up the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein in Germany. Vegesack and Fehlbaum have been working together since 1987. With Vegesack serving as curator, they have formed one of the most important design collections in the world tracing the innovative technical processes of design.

The furniture pieces offered from Vegesack’s personal collection were duplicates of examples in the Vitra collection of “innovative industrial modernist design.” He was selling this collection to raise funds in order to expand the workshop he set up at Domaine de Boisbuchet in France. For the past seven years he has collaborated with the Vitra Design Museum and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris to offer interdisciplinary workshops for participants from around the world who come there to live and work with renowned architects, designers, and artists. He said the proceeds from the sale would go to restore and finish more buildings at Domaine de Boisbuchet and expand the programs, which host 300 students each summer.

The Vegesack sale accounted for $1,069,590 of Phillips’ $4.3 million sales total; 47 of the 69 lots sold. They were offered and exhibited alphabetically, beginning with Aalto and ending with Wagenfeld. That provided a surprising dialogue among things in their own space, the very opposite of the interior decorator installation at Christie’s. Among the high prices in addition to the Prouvé Trapèze table were a unique prototype of Ron Arad’s Little Heavy chair that sold for $64,800 and a Gerrit Rietveld Beugelstoel armchair that sold for $48,000. A Rietveld Zig-Zag table sold for $40,800.

With manufactured furniture, rarity is an important factor. At Wright in Chicago, $630,000 was paid for an Isamu Noguchi marble-top table. Wright believes it “transcends the distinction between decorative and fine art by integrating aesthetic elements and details into functional designs” and is at once utilitarian and pure sculpture. The IN 62 table was made circa 1948, before art furniture was a concept and at a time when designers were trying to bring avant-garde design to the market. Fewer than ten were made. Richard Wright said he knows of only four of them. The price was the highest paid for a piece of furniture all week.

Wright has set the design standard for stunning catalogs. It brings fresh things to a market that demands glamour, warmth, and comfort and finds it in 20th-century design. On December 4, Wright offered a catalog of Italian designs with success. The sale was a collection built around the collection of Rossella Colombari, who put 20th-century furniture against a backdrop of 18th-century paneling. Wright sold her Ico Parisi console for $240,000, and got $228,000 for her Franco Campo and Carlo Graffi lounge chair of laminated birch wood and brass with blue upholstery. Altogether, 103 of the 154 lots of Italian design sold for $1,820,690.

For the first time, Wright dedicated a sale session and separate catalog to the 1970’s. “I tried to get people to look at that time period,” he said. “I wanted it to be a serious overview of the period, not wild and groovy.” At the high end, there was a lot of sophisticated design by French, Italian, and American designers. This was the least successful of the three catalogs. Wright said it was because it’s an emerging market. Just 67 of the 125 lots offered sold, for a total of $697,500. The top price was $60,000, paid for a Paul Evans faceted metal cabinet of chrome-plated steel.

In his larger general sale Wright got big prices for Harry Bertoia sculptures: two of the ten sold for $96,000 each. He got $84,000 for a complete set of 14 handwoven maguey fiber weavings designed by Alexander Calder. A Nakashima Minguren II dining table, its top measuring 84″ x 51″, brought $74,400. He got a strong $21,600 for a Nakashima king-size headboard.

All these sales came on the heels of the new design fair section at Art Basel Miami Beach. Just 15 dealers were invited to set up a selling exhibition of 20th- and 21st-century design in a four-story atrium space enhanced by a site-specific installation by Zaha Hadid. It was meant to lure buyers who were shopping for contemporary art. The participating French and American dealers said they did some business in Miami and were exhausted before they had to preview and bid at the New York City sales.

The week in New York City ended on December 10 with Sotheby’s American Renaissance sale focusing on the early years of the 20th century with Tiffany, Prairie school, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Arts and Crafts. There were very few people in the salesroom, but this long-established field has a following, and the sale totaled $4,495,500.

Sotheby’s specialist Jodi Pollack offered Arts and Crafts furnishings from dealer Robert Kaplan’s personal collection and from the gallery stock of Kaplan and Beth Cathers of Cathers & Dembrosky, some of which they had shown at the New York Winter Antiques Show. Kaplan said he decided to sell some of his favorite things that he had owned long before he became a dealer in order to attract new buyers to the field. “There hasn’t been enough first-rate Arts and Crafts at auction for some time, and I thought Sotheby’s marketing machine could get the word out and expand our audience, and they did. They advertised the sale in the American painting catalog, and new people were buyers.”

Not enough new bidders, however, went after the expensive lots. Five major pieces from Kaplan’s collection failed to sell. There were some high spots and some bargains. A small Stickley table with round top, Model #436, sold for a whopping $57,000 (est. $18,000/ 24,000), a record for the form. A patinated bronze Dirk Van Erp lamp with a mica shade sold for a strong $144,000. It was a flawless example.

Other lots from the Kaplan consignment sold within estimates. A two-door Gustav Stickley bookcase, circa 1903, sold for $42,000, a good buy for an extraordinary example. Another two-door bookcase sold for $39,000; it is classic but not as rare a form. A smoker’s cabinet at $19,200 was a fair price for a rare piece. Two white embroidered table scarves were good buys at $9000 and $6600 and must have made a collector happy.

Among the successes in the sale was a unique Gustav Stickley oak table with an ebonized finish, circa 1903, the rounded edges on the top suggesting the hand of Harvey Ellis when he worked for Stickley. Previously unknown, it was estimated at $20,000/30,000 and sold for $66,000. A Marblehead Pottery panther vase, a spectacular example, circa 1910, 7″ tall, sold for $102,000 (est. $35,000/ 45,000) and was the third-highest price at auction for a piece of Marblehead pottery. The very same price was paid for a Frank Lloyd Wright window from the bursar’s office of the Darwin S. Martin house in Buffalo, New York.

Of the top ten lots in the sale, eight were from Tiffany Studios. A Trumpet Creeper chandelier sold for $391,200. The eight-light Turtleback tile chandelier pictured on the catalog cover went at $329,600. A European private collector paid $251,200 for a landscape window that had been a wedding gift from Sir Edward Burne-Jones and his wife to Stanley Baldwin (who later became a prime minister) and his wife, Lucy Risdale, and had been in a prominent English collection.

Sotheby’s Saturday sale put its grand total at $12.1 million for 380 lots sold of the 497 offered for a 77.3% sold total.

The week of sales in New York City began at Bonhams in the Fuller Building on December 6 with a sale of 298 lots of furniture, bronzes, art pottery, and art glass, which brought a total of about $2.4 million, the best-ever Bonhams 20th-century design sale in America.

The total was swelled by two spectacular pieces of lacquer furniture by Jean Dunand. A rare eggshell lacquer drum table with doors opening to a coral red interior sold for $534,250 to Robert Vallois, a New York City and Paris dealer in the salesroom, underbid by a private buyer in the salesroom. Among the first of Dunand’s lacquer works to be exhibited in Paris in 1922, it was purchased at that time by the family of the consignor. A rectangular table with a single drawer, the top perimeter decorated by Dunand with a band of orange and white rectangles, sold for $358,250 (est. $30,000/50,000) to Vallois.

Bonhams seems to fill a niche in the New York City market, offering more modest-priced lots of art glass, bronzes, and art pottery that Sotheby’s and Christie’s refuses and turning up some great rarities as well. The Dunand drum table was the most expensive piece of furniture sold at auction in New York City in December. Vallois called it a masterpiece.

The huge total for the week showed the breadth and strength of the market fueled by collectors who want what they want instantly and are willing to pay what it takes to get it.

“For a week with enormous totals, there was little of iconic level offered,” commented Nancy McClelland, who has watched this market for a generation, first as an auction house specialist and now as an advisor to collectors. “Iconic material has become very scarce,” she said.

“It was a banner year for us,” said Richard Wright, who said he sold $20 million worth of 20th-century design in 2012 with sales in March, May, September, and December, including private treaty sales. “The Noguchi table we sold is a great American design. It is historical. It shows that side of the market is alive and well,” said Wright. He admitted that there is an element of fashion driving this market, making the results unpredictable. “If you are open to both worlds, the academic and the decorative, then you can really capture the magic of the twentieth century,” he contended.

Some serious prices were paid. The momentum is sure to bring forth more masterpieces for future sales, and there are plenty of auctioneers competing for the consignments.