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prices to skyrocket by as much as 100-fold in just months.

Started by Mayonaise99-migration,

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Mayonaise99-migration

Mayonaise99-migration

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April 17, 2006 -- Billions amassed in economic booms in China, Russia and India are heading into a hot global investment - artwork - pumping the art world up for its biggest year ever.

Collectors are agog over the huge piles of new cash searching for relatively unknown or ignored works by artists from places such as China, India, the Mideast and the peasant backwaters of Russia.

 

Experts say demand has triggered an exuberant scramble for these works, causing their prices to skyrocket by as much as 100-fold in just months.

 

"The newly rich in China, Russia and India are a prime factor heating up this market," said Milton Esterow, editor and publisher of ARTNews, which tracks the industry.

 

"The tantalizing thing is they're first buying up all the treasures they can find that had been taken out of their countries year earlier," he said.

 

"They're investing heavily in the traditional Impressionists and Modern works because of the huge returns they've generated. They're pushing up all parts of the market."

 

Spending on Russian art alone is up a whopping 166 percent, while Chinese art sales are up 74 percent in the past year, according to regulatory filings by auction house Sotheby's.

 

 

 

"China and Russia sales are up dramatically," said Bill Ruprecht, CEO of Sotheby's, which is rapidly opening auction houses in major cities of Asia, India and Russia to ride the boom.

 

So is its main rival, auction house Christie's, which also is expanding to Mideast capitals where oil billionaires and their agents travel the globe for Islamic art that had been spirited from their lands by British colonialists decades earlier.

 

Sotheby's and Christie's are going head-to-head in a battle here next week for Russian buyers with rival auctions of hundreds of Russian treasures dating back more than 100 years.

 

The pieces include relatively obscure Russian artworks that only a year ago sold for a few thousand dollars but now are on the block for hundreds of thousands.

 

For example, Christie's in recent months got $2.9 million for a 1919 painting by Boris Kustodiev - seven times its opening bid - and more than 100 times higher than the $30,000 it originally fetched when Christie's last sold it in 1989.

 

Sotheby's also set a record for the highest price ever paid for a Russian painting - $3.7 million for a 1912 still life by Ilya Ivanovich Mashkov.

 

Chinese art regularly breaks records. A small porcelain jar from the Yuan Dynasty sold for a whopping $27.6 million last summer at Christie's.

 

In China, newly wealthy artists are the new celebrities. Painter Zhang Xiaogang, 47, a year ago stunned China's art circles by getting $90,000 for a painting.

 

But in a sale at Sotheby's here two weeks ago, one of the painter's works sold for a record $979,000. It was purchased by a Singapore collector who wanted to keep it in China.

 

"It's mind-boggling to see such enormous and quick rises for any artist," said Esterow.

 

"It's just the tip of the iceberg of what's going on.

 

"A lot of American and European collectors are buying up what few Chinese artworks are out there."

 

Demand for Indian art is also so strong that a new gallery recently opened in Manhattan just to handle the collectors and speculators in search of potential windfalls.

 

"Indian collectors are in New York and London are buying Indian art like crazy," Esterow said

 

One recent sale here of a 1979 work by Indian painter Maqbool Fida Husain fetched $576,000. A few years ago it would have sold for just a fraction of that.

 

The demand for potential bargains is so strong it prompted a New York-based specialist on Indian art, Sundaram Tagore, to take the plunge and open his own gallery in recent months.

 

Esterow's publication compiles an annual list of the world's top 200 collectors.

 

"It used to be rare to see someone from India or China or Russia on the list. Now they make up more than 15 percent of the people."

 

paul.tharp@nypost.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Mayonaise99-migration

Mayonaise99-migration

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It is inexorable that OA will go up by the type of multiples that other worldly art is going up. Classic OA will catch-up with the rest of the market. Right now it is undervalued in comparison with Art from other countries. The irony is that American Images and comic characters are more worldly than some of the esoteric cultural art compared to the peasant/ back-water art of other countries.

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Kevin76

Kevin76

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Which-whatever all u playah haters. Facts are facts and OA will CONTINUE TO ECLIPSE COMIC BOOKS AS INVESTMENTS.

 

KrazyKat your so obvious about who you are it's insane, maybe you'll be able to come back to the boards and fool us all once you stop preaching about how great OA is,it's your biggest give away. No charge on the tip.

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tth2

tth2

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Interesting article. Based upon my reading, it would seem clear that OA of Russian, Chinese and Arab comics are bound for glory, in the same way that art works by Russian, Chinese and Arab artists are shooting up. But OA from western comics? Zilch. Nada. In fact, perhaps the hot money in western OA will dump their holdings to start buying up OA from these other countries. gossip.gif Well done, KK, you have identified the next great investment opportunity. It just ain't the one you're thinking of.

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delekkerste

delekkerste

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Interesting article. Based upon my reading, it would seem clear that OA of Russian, Chinese and Arab comics are bound for glory, in the same way that art works by Russian, Chinese and Arab artists are shooting up. But OA from western comics? Zilch. Nada. In fact, perhaps the hot money in western OA will dump their holdings to start buying up OA from these other countries. gossip.gif Well done, KK, you have identified the next great investment opportunity. It just ain't the one you're thinking of.

 

It's like Blazing Bob said - it's all about the ego factor. How many Russian tycoons, Arab oil sheiks or Chinese businessmen are going to want to brag that they have such-and-such ASM cover or a key page from the "historic" Days of Future Past Storyline? How many of them have ever read a comic book? How many of them even know comic art exists? KK really needs to get out more; maybe then he'd realize that the rest of the world does not revolve around comic art prices.

 

Speaking of art vs. comic art, there is one of the most asinine threads of all-time going on now in ComicArt-L. It started off with a True Believer saying that Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" sucks because ol' Leo can't draw noses/faces, then morphed into a discussion about how the Mona Lisa sucks too and how can people think this is great art and not recognize comic art as such as well. I encourage people to check it out; while amusing on one level, it's very disturbing on another. I'm not saying that the fine art world isn't just as irrational in its own right, but this constant defensiveness and insecurity in the OA world about comic art not being fine art and feeling it necessary to defend points of view which are indefensible just casts a bad light on the hobby, IMHO

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delekkerste

delekkerste

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The irony is that American Images and comic characters are more worldly than some of the esoteric cultural art compared to the peasant/ back-water art of other countries.

 

This is easily one of the top 10 all-time stupidest things ever said on this message board. And, believe me, there have been a LOT of stupid things said here.

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tth2

tth2

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The irony is that American Images and comic characters are more worldly than some of the esoteric cultural art compared to the peasant/ back-water art of other countries.

 

This is easily one of the top 10 all-time stupidest things ever said on this message board. And, believe me, there have been a LOT of stupid things said here.

Nah, now he`s just being silly and trying to emulate all those weirdo coinees who hang out up in the Water Cooler.

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helionaut

helionaut

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You want to talk about missed opportunities? Daniel Johnston. Heard a story on NPR this morning about him. He's a local (Texas) guy who plays music, does weird, crude drawings, and is generally considered slightly unstable but in a highly creative and amusing way. About a decade ago Austin Books had a binder full of his drawings, just plain 8x11 sheets of paper with bizarro drawings, some in pen, some in pen colored with highlighter. They were priced at about $5-15 bucks, about 100 of them. I am pretty sure I bought one but I can't remember what I did with it. Many of the drawings in that book had comic characters like Captain America and the Hulk, and they wre all quirky and funny. Now the Whitney in New York is hanging a dozen of his "genuine American Folk Art" pieces, and there's a movie about him, and all that. I checked Ebay and around the web and his drawings are now selling for hundreds of dollars. Check out www.hihowareyou.com (the name coming from his "mural" on the side of the Sound Exchange ((now a Baja Fresh)) on the Drag at UT). Groan.

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CW

CW

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Hey, God Bless America, KyLe aGe AtE. That makes my Picassoturner look okay.

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