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The Value of Glass Studio Glass Market Analysis 2001-2003 by William Warmus
Above:
Sotheby’s auction catalog for June 4, 2001. Lot 3, Chihuly Venetian,
which sold for $27,200. Market
Overview: Economic State in 2001-2002 The market for studio glass (c. 1962-present) is a sub-set of the international art and craft market. There are dozens of dealers (several of whom have been in business for 20-30 years) representing studio glass artists, a term that means that the glass is created in the artist's studio rather than in a factory setting. These galleries range
from Marlborough Gallery (representing Dale Chihuly) and Charles
Cowles, Heller Gallery and Leo Kaplan Modern in Manhattan, to Holsten
Gallery in the
Berkshires, and Maurine
Littleton and The Glass Gallery in the Washington DC area. The venerable
Habatat
Galleries has several branches (including Michigan, Florida and Illinois)
while Elliott-Brown and William Traver Gallery are landmarks in Seattle.
Riley-Hawk has branches in the midwest and Seattle areas. The
leading New York auction houses, Sotheby's and (sometimes) Christies, conduct auctions that include
glass, and recently, Phillips auction house has become active in the
field, as have several internet auction houses such as
ebay.com. For links to Galleries exhibiting Studio Glass, go here: Galleries. There is an active and large (500-1000 range) group of serious collectors who follow the artists' careers, collect in depth, and have formed a group (the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass) that sponsors lectures, grants to artists, etc. The SOFA (Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art) group (based in Chicago) sponsors two annual art expositions (in Chicago in November and New York City in the Spring--previously in Miami) that generally include 10-15 or more dealers specializing in glass as an art medium. These shows have become a barometer for analyzing the retail market.
Above: Dale Chihuly chandelier at SOFA Chicago Art Exposition (Holsten Gallery) At the SOFA Expo in Chicago in 1996, a collector purchased a large group of contemporary glass artworks valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars; while this is unusual, it is not unusual for a major contemporary collection to include 50 or more artworks by leading and emerging artists. The SOFA Chicago 1998 Expo (October, 1998) saw some softening in the market, but also significant sales of works at the top end—not strong enough data to indicate a trend either way in the market. SOFA Chicago 1999 (November 1999) seemed to indicate a stronger market, with rising prices and solid sales by leading figures such as Chihuly and Dailey and Libensky. The SOFA 2000 Expos in NYC and Chicago indicated a steady market that, while showing no signs of softening, was somewhat lackluster by the November, 2000 Chicago Expo. The first half of 2001 has shown continued flatness in the market, without a discernible trend upward or downward. For example, the artist Marvin Lipofsky had very strong sales in the $20,000 to $25,000 range at the Holsten Gallery booth at SOFA NYC in June, 2001 (and also at SOFA NYC in 2003). Benefit auctions (notably in support of the Pilchuck Glass School near Seattle) regularly raise several hundred thousand dollars through the sale of glass art. The continuing softness in the American economy from 2001 to 2003 may be having an effect on the art market, but at the time of the filing of this report it is difficult to tell if prices for studio glass are dropping.
Above: Overview of the SOFA Chicago exposition hall Museums
have become avid collectors, noteworthy among them The Corning Museum of
Glass, The Toledo Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (which
organized a show of studio glass in 1996), and The Boston Museum of Fine
Arts (which held a studio glass exhibition in 1997 that was among the
most highly attended of any art exhibition in the United States in that
year). The Mint Museum of Art in North Carolina has an extremely active
acquisitions program for studio glass. The Los Angeles County Art Museum
is planning a major studio glass exhibition for the year 2002. And the
Indianapolis Museum of Art is the recipient of the Glick collection. The
opening of the new Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, scheduled for
2002, is already having an effect on the marketplace because the museum
has begun to collect in anticipation of the opening (they or their
patrons have purchased major works by Lino Tagliapietra and Stanislav
Libensky).The American scene is paralleled by activity in Europe
(especially Germany and Switzerland) and Asia (especially Japan, where a
private museum focusing on the work of Dale Chihuly, Emile Galle and
Daum opened in May, 1997). Publications such as Glass magazine (NYC), Glass Art (Texas), Neues Glas (Germany) and American Style (Philadelphia) and American Craft (New York) regularly document the work of glass artists and provide (especially American Style) market information. The bibliography of books and articles about studio glass is extensive; the reader is referred to the bibliographies maintained on this web site at: Bibliography. The
Secondary Market: Auctions and Dealers The
secondary market for earlier studio glass (c.1962-1990) is developing
through the auction market cited above and active sales by private
dealers. Recently (1997-1998 season) Christie’s auction house has
become less involved with studio glass, but Habatat Gallery in Michigan
has been conducting regular auctions of secondary market material
(April, 1998 and March, 2001). Sotheby’s remains active, as for
example with the Frankel collection of studio glass, which it auctioned
in 1999. Prominent dealers, notably Barry Friedman and Donna Schneier in
New York City, have entered the secondary market in the last few years
and are very actively seeking older works.
Above:
Left, Sotheby’s June 4, 2001 sale: top, Littleton lot 1, which sold
for $29,500 and Pavlik, lot 2, which sold for $38,125. At right,
Sotheby’s sale of the Frankel Collection, June 10, 1999, lot 4,
Libensky and Brychotva sculpture, which sold for $25,300. In
general, auction prices for studio glass have shown considerable
volatility, and require expert interpretation. They do not necessarily
indicate the full retail value of comparable artworks. Market
Variability and Stability, and Discounting
Above: Highly magnified detail of Botanical by Paul Stankard, showing a dragonfly. Stankard is a perennial favorite among collectors. Studio
glass has largely recovered from the recession of the early 1990s when
prices are estimated (by this appraiser) to have declined 15% to 25% or
30% from late 1980 values. In retrospect, the early 1990s were a good
time to acquire studio glass at depressed prices. Discounting was a
factor in the price decline. Current levels of discounting require
expert documentation and analysis. The
New York Times, in an article by Carol Vogel (Once
Modern, Now 20th-Century: New Category Attracts Strong Bidding,
5.13.98, page B4) reported that “Labels really don’t matter. In the
art market today, where demand far outweighs supply, a painting, drawing
or sculpture of reasonably good quality will draw strong prices...”
The market for contemporary studio glass is no exception, and works of
quality are currently appreciating in value. In fact, two major problems
for the appraiser in this field are that glass artworks of highest
quality are either being donated directly to museums or withheld (by
knowledgeable collectors) from the market—making it difficult at times
to obtain comparables when a key masterpiece is donated to a museum
collection.
William
Morris “Canopic Jar, Fallow Deer”. Sold at E-Wolfs Online Auction
for $150,650 in September, 2000. The
Internet and the Rise of the Electronic Art Market The
Internet may be having an impact on the market, although the recent
turmoil in this medium may have long term consequences for its growth as
a medium of exchange and a source of data in the artworld. The rise (and
fall) of sites like E-Wolfs (in decline in 2001) and E-Bay, the cyber
auction house, in 1999-2000 helped to expand the market for collectibles
and works of art, as have dealer sites that include prices, as well as
the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass site and established auction
houses including Sotheby’s. In the opinion of this report, the
widespread availability of data about objects and prices on the internet
can only help to stabilize the market, provided safeguards are
established to prevent false information about sales from being
published. For now, the use of this data in value analysis must be
tempered by skepticism about accuracy and counterbalanced by direct
market research. Internet
auction activity has proven to be very uneven, and some auction houses
on-line have been plagued by problems, injecting uncertainty into that
market. For the expert, the analysis of price data available on the
internet must at the moment be tempered with caution, and buttressed by
other data obtained directly from dealers, artists, and exhibitions. William
Warmus Ithaca,
NY February
2002
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