Soaring art market returns to earth with a bump

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON (Reuters) - Everyone who is anyone in the art world was in London last week for a series of sales and fairs.

The trouble is, too many collectors left their checkbook behind in the clearest sign yet that the global financial crisis has finally caught up with the art world. Experts warn that things are likely to get tougher.

A far bigger test for a market which had largely defied the gravity of economic gloom comes next month, when Sotheby's and Christie's, the two dominant auction houses, hold major sales in New York. The Art Basel Miami Beach show follows in December.

"Now is not a brilliant time to be selling -- people are facing such a complicated financial situation they are not prepared to do anything," said Philip Hoffman, chief executive of the Fine Art Fund Group.

"The market place is much tougher, and in light of what's happened in the financial markets, the art market cannot be immune to it. Liquidity is tighter everywhere."

London has just hosted the annual Frieze Art Fair, which has become synonymous with the big-spending rich and super-rich as they pay astronomic sums for choice paintings and sculptures.

After years of rapid growth, the mood among dealers this year was more cautious, and at glitzy champagne receptions and pricey dinners across the city the talk was as much about financial meltdown as about fine art.

Auction houses selling some of the best works on offer were not spared, with Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips de Pury holding weekend sales that fell well short of the low estimates -- something almost alien to the art market in recent years.

But while experts acknowledge that there are problems, they point out that art values are still historically high and that a single week's sales in London was not enough to sound the death knell for an extraordinary bull run.

"It is far too early to announce the demise of the market," said Charles Dupplin, art expert at specialist insurer Hiscox.

"One set of sales which have come at a time of particular horribleness in financial markets, which must affect people's confidence, is not enough to say the party is over in the art market," he added.

Dupplin and others pointed out that compared with stocks or other traded instruments, the art market was far less transparent, and what went on in the showrooms of top auction houses and galleries was only the "tip of the iceberg."

"DOWN BY A HALF"

Activity in the giant marquee at Regent's Park that houses Frieze each year was neither frenzied nor frozen.

"There were sales, but I think there was also a lot of brave talk," said Georgina Adam, art market editor of The Art Newspaper who followed Frieze closely. "One leading gallery told me that its sales were half what they were last year."