Et could be crowded when the four major German auction houses call their summer bids. Lempertz and Van Ham, both in Cologne, and Grisebach in Berlin will be auctioning almost simultaneously on the first days of June. At a small distance, Ketterer brings its usual extensive range to Munich. This can only work because many customers are now online bidders due to the pandemic.
The online-only auctions, which have been expanded by all houses and sometimes take place at very short intervals, have also meant that floor auctions have lost quantity. That’s not bad, on the contrary: it gives the impression of compressed quality. The majority of the lots are valued in the middle four-digit to lower six-digit range.
The two-day sprint – a challenge even for decisive bidders – begins at Lempertz with the “Evening Sale” on June 1, 2022. 97 lots of modern and contemporary art are up for auction, along with an original passage on abstract expressionism. These include drawings by Arshile Gorky, who fled from Armenia to America and died early (“Écriture automatique”, 1946 and 1948, 80,000 and 200,000 euros).
A work on paper by Helen Frankenthaler, who belonged to the New York circle around de Kooning and Pollock, is being offered (20,000 euros). Cy Twombly created pictures in characteristic pencil and colored pencil Scriptura (80,000, with red accents 200,000 euros). On the other hand, Günther Förg exudes German minimalism in its purest form in six absolutely non-gestural, upright rectangular panels with a red vertical bar on a rolled lead background (500,000 euros).
Van Ham withdraws Constructivist paintings
At Van Ham, you can bid on an equally minimalist but more conceptual three-part work by Imi Knoebel on the same day. “Anima Mundi 19-3” (60,000 euros) from 2013 is part of a body of work that varies the theme of space and color. Here Knoebel combines three monochrome painted aluminum panels with four differently colored profiles. The individual parts are “delivered” in a wooden box with installation instructions and offer the new owner undreamt-of possibilities for variation.
Van Ham has made a name for itself as an auctioneer of liquidations and estates, some of which were ordered by the court – such as the inventory of the illustrious consultant dealer Helge Achenbach. Now the second installment of works from the estate of the gallery owner Michael Schultz, who was heavily in debt and died at the end of 2021, is being called up.
Gerhard Richter’s work on paper “6.2.88” comes from the Schultz Collection
What: Van Ham
The Russian avant-garde works consigned to Van Ham from the estate of former Deutsche Bank boss Hilmar Kopper, who died in 2021, still require some research or clarification. The works by El Lissitzky, Lyubov Popova, Wassili Yermilow and Aristarch Lentulow, among others, could be fakes, as the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” reports.
The provenance information is “little confidence-inspiring”. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a brisk international trade in false constructivists, which also found their way into the Museum Ludwig in this way. The auction house has withdrawn the questionable lots.
Anyone who follows the “Day Sale” with modern and contemporary art as well as works from the years after 1945 at Lempertz on the next day, June 2, 2022, can prepare themselves financially and emotionally for the evening call for 32 “selected works” at the Berlin auction house Grisebach. Two top lots have to prove themselves there in the millions:
Max Pechstein’s rival dancer couple “Harlequin and Pierrot”, united in dynamic movement, was created in 1909 under the impression of the Russian court ballet’s first guest performance in Berlin. The market-fresh work has been in the family since 1956 and is now being called up at an estimate of two million euros.
Max Beckmann’s narrow landscape format “Gray Beach” from 1928 is a restrained impression from Scheveningen in the Netherlands in elegant white, gray and ocher. In her seemingly static calm, she gives an idea of the fleetingness of an afternoon by the sea. The brief moment of still happiness is now valued at one million euros. In the fall, Grisebach sold Beckmann’s beach scene from Zandvorde, dated 1934, at 1.9 million euros.
Most of the works by Gordon Matta-Clark are ephemeral, whose interventions – such as sawing up and cutting out the walls of derelict houses – overturned stereotypical viewing habits and celebrated a radical deconstructivism. For his “Cut Drawings” he stacked sheets of paper exactly on top of each other and milled strictly geometric “drawings” into them. “Circle Grid Overlay” from 1977 is estimated at 200,000 euros.
Auction of the Gerlinger Collection in Munich
For a long time, there has been an aggravated acquisition situation both internationally and in Germany. The reason to sell a work of art only seems plausible to very few owners. The understandable reasons include inheritance and separation disputes, perhaps the restructuring of a portfolio or a changed focus of the collection. But that’s usually it, apart from acute liquidity problems.
All auction houses are under constant pressure to acquire good works. Unless you could secure a comfortable cushion. The first 45 lots of the “Evening Sale” on June 10 at Ketterer in Munich come from the wide range of the Gerlinger Collection (Würzburg). After the collector had struggled for a long time with museums and institutions that could not or would not agree to his conditions for a foundation, the auctioneer Robert Ketterer was commissioned to gradually liquidate the collection.
Erich Heckel’s motif “Children” (estimate: 600,000 euros) is tops in the current segment with his – like Kirchner’s – favorite model Fränzi, whose role already raised questions at the time. Here the child lies naked on a bright red chaise longue. Sitting next to her, all in black, lost in thought, sad, ashamed, no one knows, her friend Hans.
August Macke, “Girl with Blue Birds”
Source: Marc Autenrieth/Ketterer
August Macke’s “Girl with Blue Birds” is called up at two million euros in the evening auction. Composed in 1914 in paradisiacal fullness, in a contemplative mood and in softly glowing colors, it belongs to the richest creative phase of the artist. Two months after completing this picture, Macke died on the western front at the age of 27. The lawyer and textile entrepreneur Erich Raemisch acquired the work in 1928 from the estate managed by Macke’s widow and was able to save it during the turmoil of war.
To date, the picture, known from numerous exhibitions and publications, has remained in the family. At a price that is predictable to reflect both its museum quality and the current willingness to invest of knowledgeable collectors, it will now find its way into new hands after almost 100 years.