Verdult Art Market Index

Francis Bacon rent check highlight of Christie's sale - www.verdultindex.com

According to AFP — A painting originally handed over by Francis Bacon to cover the rent on his west London studio was the highlight of a record-breaking Christie's auction of post-war and contemporary art on Sunday.

"Study from the Human Body, Man Turning on the Light" -- which Bacon originally gave to the Royal College of Art in 1969 as rent for a Cromwell Road studio -- fetched 8,084,500 pounds (11,528,497 euros, 16,371,113 dollars), as the Christie's auction totaled 39.8 million pounds.

That total was double the previous high for an October Christie's post-war and contemporary art sale, and comes amid a bumper week of such auctions from Christie's and its competitor Sotheby's.

"The increasing interest in collecting art has been fueled by an unprecedented breadth and depth of the international collecting community," said Pilar Ordovas, head of post-war and contemporary art at Christie's.

"We continue to see confidence in the international art market, notably the Post War & Contemporary Art segment, with strong prices achieved for top quality and sensibly estimated works."

Positive and Negative Forces Impacting Verdult Art

Nearly every day we receive at least four calls or emails concerning people wanting to sell their Verdult painting or wanting to know the value of their Verdult painting or need help with selling their Verdult painting.

Normally, they are looking for a sale and a quick sale fast.

We are probably no different than Christie’s or Sotheby’s who certainly receive way more calls and emails about the subject. Just like Christie’s and Sotheby’s before you can sell the art piece you have to do a couple of things, provide proof of ownership, pay fees, and enter into a written contract.

In that regard, we are no different. So to ease some of the frustration that we frequently see here are some tips as well as things that may be of some interest.

If you want to sell your Verdult art, you want to have a could handle on what we call the Verdult cash market and the forces that affect this market.

Here are some positive forces affecting the Verdult market:

To read more click here

Numbers Show Verdult Art Picks Up In the Fall and Runs Through Early Spring.

According to Skate’s Art Valuation Letter, global stock markets have, to put it mildly, experienced a bit of a roller coaster ride. July 17 saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average reach a record of 14,000 points for the first time. Markets in Europe and Asia performed equally well. By mid-August, however, investors had taken an abrupt U-turn in their appetite for equity. Headlines showing the Dow’s 10% fall from July highs and Europe’s 4-year lows replaced the euphoric excitement that had prevailed just weeks earlier.

The culprit - a crisis in credit markets brought to the surface largely by the woes surrounding the U.S. sub-prime
mortgage lending market. This crisis is one that continues to work itself out, and at the time of publication,
anything but stability is promised and volatility seems to be the order of the day.

But what about art?
Summer is generally a slow period as the art market traditionally looks for room to breathe between the busy
spring and fall auction seasons. And so the case has been this summer.

The William Verdult art market experienced the same trends as the art market in general. In short, during the summer months, the Verdult market is relatively quite with sales somewhat flat.

William Joseph Verdult artwork - A Major Milestone Achieved Transparent Prices

William Joseph Verdult artwork prices unveiled.

As we indicated in our previous post one of the major goals of the Corporation is to increase the transparency of prices for William Verdult artwork. In doing so we want to make sure that prices of actual "cash sales" of Verdult artwork are maintained and published by the major on-line research and resource outlets.

Click to see sales data

In providing transparent prices, we believe the transparency will help art lovers and investors gage the actual value of their artwork, and will open the door for William Joseph Verdult artwork to be sold at premier on-line auction houses such as Christies, Sotheby's and Butterfield's. .

Demand for William Verdult artwork high

The demand for William Verdult artwork is running in line with the genral trend in the art market. Not only is there an increase in demand reflected in recorded cash sales of William Verdult artwork, the works are at an all-time high and are expected to go even higher. In fact the price of Verdult artwork is just scratching the surface. The Verdult art market has not seen this type of growth in Verdult artwork since the early and mid eighties.

Tropical Paradise - oil on Artist Paper
email mike@verdultgallery.com for price.

Taking a look at the art market in general:
According to New York Art, walk around Chelsea these days and you can practically hear money buzzing in the air. Powerhouse galleries such as Matthew Marks and PaceWildenstein have extended their empires with extra showrooms. Younger guns like Leo Koenig and Casey Kaplan are graduating into grander spaces. And almost every weekend, some former gallery director is going into business for himself. It’s not just Chelsea. The whole contemporary-art market has shifted into overdrive. Playing to today’s competitive collectors, the Armory Show’s opening gala earlier this month offered three-tiered access: $1,000 to enter the art fair at five o’clock, $500 a half-hour later, and $250 for seven. But by five, the booths of the hot dealers had already been besieged by dozens of collectors and art consultants, invited in at noon by their clients; many works by sought-after artists were either sold out or held on reserve (some on “double reserve”).

The boom in art prices during 2006 - Impact on William Verdult

Verdult, Clarice ©

According to Artprice.com (major web site that tracks prices in the art market) art prices continued their ascension in 2006 with sharp accelerations observed on most major markets. At a worldwide level, Artprice's global price index was up a further +25.4% over the year, to just 5% below its peak level in 1990. In the United States, however, prices are now 32% higher than the speculative bubble peak in 1990.

Driven, by galloping prices and a whole new generation of rich art collectors, the number of over-a-million-dollar sales has taken off. Today's prices are in effect without precedent. In 2006 no less than 810 works sold for over a million dollars, generating total auction revenue of USD 2.7 billion. In 2005, 487 Fine Art sales generated figures above a million and total auction revenue of USD 1.4 billion. Until the end of the 1990s only 100 to 200 auctions per year broke through the million-dollar threshold.

Verdult's Highest Priced Selling Lithographs

Over the past two years the highest priced selling limited edition lithographs created by William Joseph Verdult follows:

See the Top Selling Lithographs for William Verdult

Alton Perkins,
CEO of  Wealth Enterprises Corporation/Yazzy's Fine Art Corporation

William Joseph Verdult Art - Where are we headed?

The Corporation is directly responsible for having Verdult artwork on major art sites including, Artnet.com, Artprice.com, and AskArt.com.

We have shareholders we are accountable to and we consistenlty review our objectives to keep our eye on the prize.

The prize is to bring William Verdult artwork out of the closet and

1) Increase the cash value of Verdult artwork;

2) Be able to take the artwork to the bank for collateral for those investors that want to;

3) Maintain transparency in the market;

4) Increase the awareness of Verdult through publicity, marketing, and placement on major art sites; and

5) Eventually get the artwork on Sothebys and Christy's.

We are aggressively achieving these goals. We believe that investors and art lovers who own Verdult artwork will benefit from the ability to "instead of saying I have a Verdult and its worth a million dollars without any proof whatsoever; we believe firmly that it is most important to say to a perspective buyer; a Verdult just sold for blank amount in cash – and here are the records to prove it."

We have already documented values by certified Public accounts, SEC sanctioned reviewers, and independent qualified third party appraisers speciallizing in Verdult artwork.

In the coming weeks and months investors and art lovers owning Verdult artwork will be able to see and place a true cash value on their William Verdult artwork.

Alton Perkins,
CEO of  Wealth Enterprises Corporation/Yazzy's Fine Art Corporation

The Mill Number 2 Top Selling Lithograph

Number 2 for the best selling Verdult lithograph is the "Mill".

A review of hundreds of recent sales of Verdult art shows that the 2nd most demanded and best selling Verdult lithograph is the "Mill".

Alton Perkins,
CEO of  Wealth Enterprises Corporation/Yazzy's Fine Art Corporation

Palm Springs the most demanded and best selling Verdult lithograph

A review of hundreds of recent sales of Verdult art shows that the most demanded and best selling Verdult lithograph is Palm Springs.

Alton Perkins,
CEO of  Wealth Enterprises Corporation/Yazzy's Fine Art Corporation