Heffel Fine Art is poised to have its upcoming Vancouver art auction capitalize on a sizzling hot art market that, last night, saw Pablo Picasso’s Women of Algiers sell for the highest price ever paid for a painting: US$179.3 million.
The Picasso sale, at a Christie’s auction in New York, came hours after art-auction house Sotheby’s Corp. (NYSE:BID) reported quarterly results that beat expectations for both revenue and profit.
Sotheby’s swung to a US$5.2 million profit in the quarter ended March 31 after losing US$6.1 million in the same quarter a year ago.
Higher commissions helped revenue rise 4% to US$127.9 million.
Heffel, which is based both in Vancouver and Toronto, has two big live auctions each year – a spring one in Vancouver and a fall one in Toronto.
This year’s Vancouver auction is unlikely to have any bids over $1 million.
The priciest piece is likely to be Emily Carr’s Forest Light, which is estimated to be worth between $400,000 and $600,000.
Heffel, in 2013, sold the priciest Emily Carr painting ever sold: the Crazy Stair, which art collector Michael Audain bought from the Vancouver Club for $3.4 million .
“We don’t expect that any Emily Carr sales at this year’s Vancouver auction will beat that record,” Robert Heffel told Business in Vancouver May 12.
Heffel expects that his company will sell about $37 million in art this year, including up to $10 million at its spring auction May 27 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
His company’s best year ever was in 2007, when it sold more than $50 million worth of art. Heffel explained that his company’s strong performance eight years ago was because of extremely valuable art that happened to come on the market.
“The Canadian art market is very strong,” Heffel said. “The global art market is strong too but much of what really drives art prices is what great estates and collections come up for sale. We’re working now on a number of great collections that are coming up but we had a period in Canada in 2006-2007 when there were a number of very important estates that came up and the market was booming.”
Bidders at the Heffel auction are not able to bid via the Internet even though the entire live auction is broadcast live online. Bidders must provide absentee bids, bid by phone or be in attendance, Heffel said.
Sotheby’s CEO Tad Smith noted in a May 11 conference call that he believes art prices will remain strong in part because of the significant number of über-wealthy people around the world.
“According to one recent report I read, there were over 170,000 people around the world with a net worth of more than $30 million in 2014 with a total wealth estimated at nearly $21 trillion,” Smith told analysts on the call. “The same report predicted that the global population of ultrahigh net worth individuals would grow 34% through 2024.”
