The Top Ten of the 1940s

Friday is Top day! Every other Friday, Artprice publishes a theme-based auction ranking. This week: the top ten sales of works from the 1940s.

This Top Ten of the most expensive works from the Forties once again demonstrates the great vitality of today’s market. These top ten sales have all been recorded since 2006, and three of them were posted as recently as 2013 with two works by American artist Jackson POLLOCK and one work by the French-Chinese artist SAN Yu. Apart from reflecting the soaring prices of these two artists (over the last decade, San Yu’s prices have increased by 413% and Pollock has set a new record of $52 million), this Top Ten also includes three works by Pablo PICASSO, two by Clyfford STILL, one by Alberto GIACOMETTI and one by ZHANG Daqian. So modern European artists hold four places in our ranking, with another four being claimed by American artists as a result of the explosion in abstract expressionism. Jackson Pollock and Alberto Giacometti also feature in our Top Ten of the 1950s, but it also seems quite natural to find them among the top performers of the 1940s. After all, Pollock’s absolute record at auction is for a work from 1948 entitled Number 19. This sold for $52 million in May 2013, shattering Christie’s high estimate of $17 million and providing another example of today’s soaring demand for Abstract Expressionism. This is emphasised by the fact that Clyfford Still also occupies two places on our list. Along with Pollock, Newman and Rothko, Still is one of the leading lights of American painting. His work is as sought-after as it is rare. Of all the American Abstract Expressionists, his work appears the least frequently on the market (only 35 works have been offered for sale since the end of the 1980s). In 2011, his record sale of $55 million for “1949-A-No. 1” (1949) smashed Sotheby’s high estimate by $20 million! This majestic abstract work is the second most expensive painting from the 1940s and it is the fourth-highest price recorded for an American Abstract Expressionist.

San Yu and Zhang Daquian

Born in Nanchong in 1901, San Yu arrived in post-war Paris at the age of 20. He took up residence in Montparnasse, where he frequented the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and began his friendship with Henri Matisse. He plunged into the world of nude drawing, a Western subject that was far removed from his Chinese artistic traditions. He created his works in France, where he has many fans, but his market is strongly oriented towards the East, with 90% of recent sales being recorded in Asia (67.5% in Hong Kong, 25.3% in China and 5.5% in Taiwan). Chinese demand is so strong that the French market has been stripped of many of his works. 16% of sales still take place in France, but prices are low compared to those seen in the booming Asian market, and France represents a mere 1.3% of total sales revenues. The oil on canvas that earns him his fourth place in our Top Ten, Flower (1940, 51 cm x 40 cm), is also a new record. It sold for more than $30 million in China in October 2013 (Shandong Chunqiu International, Shandong, 28 October).
Zhang Daqian has established himself as one of the world’s most sought-after artists, particularly since 2010. This was the year that propelled him to the position of fourth most expensive artist in the world (by annual sales revenues). And 2011 proved to be an even more explosive year for Daqian, with his total auction sales (excluding buyer’s premium) hitting $550 million, a figure that threw all other artists into the shade, including Warhol and Picasso. At the end of 2013, works by Daqian had generated over $291 million in sales revenues (giving him third place in the world). Since 1994 he has broken the million-dollar barrier no less than 278 times. All these sales took place in China and Hong Kong, including 55 in 2013. Last year he made more sales in excess of one million dollars than Francis Bacon, Gerhard Richter and Roy Lichtenstein put together! As with San Yu, the sale that features in this Top Ten is a world record.

Picasso in the 1940s

Picasso was already much in demand in the 1940s, and since then his prices have continued their upward trajectory (increasing by 100% over the last decade). For Picasso, the early Forties were dark and turbulent times, linked not only to the events of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, but also to his private life. In 1943, Picasso was living with Marie-Thérèse Walter when he met Françoise Gilot and another muse, Dora Maar, also entered his life and paintings. Indeed, it is a portrait of the latter, Dora Maar au chat, sold for $85 million, that brings this modern master his highest price for a work from the 1940s. This is not a record for the artist, as Dora Maar takes third place in the Picasso honours list. But when it was sold in 2006 it was the second most expensive painting on the market. His absolute record is still the $95 million recorded by Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, 1932, a portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter, his muse during his Cubist and Neoclassical periods (sold for more than $106 million including buyer’s premium on 4 May 2010 at Christie’s, New York). Picasso’s works are always inextricably entwined with his private life. So his three most expensive works from the 1940s are his portraits of Dora Maar, the woman who was such a major icon of this period.