Back to the drawing board: Wealthy investors return to art in a big way

Sotheby's surprisingly robust modern-art sales last night and today are a sign that wealthy investors are putting money back to work in art, an asset class that suffered woefully along with everything else in the financial crisis. Sotheby's pulled in $134 million in sales Wednesday night — nearly twice as much as some original estimates — including a $43.7 million sale of Andy Warhol's “200 One Dollar Bills” painting. Today, sales continued, and one art financier said he is pleasantly surprised by the results so far. “The sales were really remarkably strong, even into this morning,” said Andrew Rose, president of Art Finance Partners LLC. “They were much higher than anyone's expectations.” The Warhol work, the biggest coup of the two days, is a silkscreen painting the artist completed in the spring of 1962. Sotheby's expected it to sell for — at most — $12 million. Much of the interest was due to the work's “freshness,” said Judith Selkowitz, president of Art Advisory Services Inc., which is a 39-year veteran of the art world. The painting had not been seen in public since 1986, which got buyers excited, she said. “Sotheby's had good material,” Ms. Selkowitz said. “Much of it was fresh, and collectors and dealers are always eager for that.” A weak dollar didn't hurt, either, she added. (The buyer of “200 One Dollar Bills” was reported to be from London, according to The New York Times.) Asked to speculate on the significance of Sotheby's sales, Ms. Selkowitz said it's at the very least a sign there's money ready to be spent in the art market. “It means that there's still an art market,” she said. “For the right piece and the right price, there's a buyer.” Prices overall have a long way to go to reach the heights they had attained before last fall, she noted. Some buyers may also be looking at art as a good hedge against inflation, Mr. Rose said. “Art has traditionally held its value,” he said. “People are looking to put their money into hard assets. There's a flight to quality and into assets that will be a good hedge against inflation.” As of press time, the sales at Sotheby's today had not yet closed. But a Sotheby's spokesman said that sales had already exceed the low estimate of $30 million for the day.