London Calling | Henry Moore, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and our art potential

Left to right: Henry Moore, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon

Thursday, 23rd of April 2015 - Retirees and the British government’s new “freedom and choice in pensions” measures which are expected to result in an estimated 200,000 individuals cashing in their entire “defined contribution” retirement savings this year of an amount near £6 billion in the British economy is the mostly adored  issue these days for everyone in London. Especially in the Arts Market, the motion is highly appreciated though a recent survey begs to bring down the Utopias.  According to the survey of retirees conducted by Ipsos Mori reasearch company on behalf of Hargreaves Lansdown, few Britons view art as an investment, or something worth buying if not for decorative reasons.Some 1,247 adults surveyed aged 45 to 65 and living in Britain, replied that they expect to use their cashed-in pensions to cover living costs, reserve vacations and invest in property. All the fuss began when everyone realized that this month 7.5 million of Britain’s retirees will be able to cash in their funds. Will we explore our art potential after all?

The little foretold story would explain the steep increase we are experiencing in the expectations for a series of important art auctions, as well as their trajectory for British values. Sotheby’s surely leads the way with the two small-scale self-portraits by Francis Bacon, a single canvas from 1975 and a triptych from 1980, each of which is estimated to sell for £10 million to £15 million. The paintings will be offered in Sotheby’s contemporary art auction in London on July 1. In 2007, the Casiers sold a full-length Bacon self-portrait from 1978 for £21.6 million at Sotheby’s. Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist and modern works in London on June 24 will include Henry Moore’s “Two Women and a Child,” an imposing and previously unshown 1948 gouache and watercolor estimated at £300,000 to £400,000.

Crossing the road into Christie’s, Lucian Freud’s “Big Sue” returns on May 13, with the auction house offering another portrait from the painter’s famous “Benefits Supervisor” series during its postwar and contemporary art sales in New York. Seven years ago, at the height of the last art-market boom, Christie’s sold Freud’s monumental 1995 “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” for $33.6 million to the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. Up for sale next month will be “Benefits Supervisor Resting,” from 1994, one of four nude studies of Sue Tilley, an amply proportioned local government officer, that Freud made over a three-year period, beginning in 1993, bearing an estimated price tag of $30 million to $50 million.

 -Iason Kaerofylas