Round One of Lehman Brothers' Art Auction
The Bankrupt Investment Bank's Collection is Going, Going, Gone
Nov 1, 2009
On November 1, 2009, the contemporary and modern artwork that graced the walls of the defunct Lehman Brothers offices in New York, Boston and Willimington was auctioned by Freeman's Appraisers & Auctioneers in Philadelphia. Hours after the auction started everything was sold.
The Philadelphia auction was the first of three expected to raise about $1.1 million to satisfy Lehman Brothers' creditors. The next auctions are scheduled to be hosted by the Philadelphia auctioneers on December 6, 2009 (paintings and sculpture) and February 12, 2010 (450 prints).
Freeman's auction catalogue of the Lehman Brothers' lots is largely comprised of American artists from the 1930s to the present. Noted works include those by Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Chester Arnold, Claes Oldenburg, Pablo Picasso, and Roy Litchenstein.
Art Auction Outsells Freeman's Estimates
According to Anne Henry, Freeman's vice president, the 283 lots for sale had an estimated value of between $500,000 to $750,000, with individual artwork estimates ranging in price from $200 to $30,000. For art aficionados, the estimate was considered an undervaluation. This was confirmed by the auction's results.
Roy Litchenstein's "I Love Liberty" (1982) screenprint fetched more than double its high estimate at $49,000. A Tony King $100 bill color screenprint with gold leafing was estimated to fetch as little as $400, but sold for $4,687.
The bankruptcy mantra of "everything must go" means that most of the works had no reserve price. The dozen or so artworks that had reserves were modestly set at $10,000. Most works out-performed their low estimates as the online auction component and approximately 600 buyers registered to attend the auction on-site clammered for their piece of Lehman-memorabilia.
"The pieces are interesting, in great condition and appeal to all kinds of collectors," said Henry. Henry stated that from the beginning their phone rang off the hook.
Lehman's last chief executive was Richard Fuld, Jr. Mr. Fuld and his wife, Kathy, were reputedly avid art buffs. Kathy Fuld, the former CEO's wife, is on the trustee board at New York's Museum of Modern Art. A lot of 16 artworks from the Fuld's personal collection, in contrast to the more modest Lehman Brothers corporate collection, sold at Christies in 2008.
Depression-era Art Prominent in Lehman's Collection
It is notable that one out of six of the Lehman Brothers' collected works in the Philadelphia auction contain images of New York, and that many date from the 1930s. Though the timing of the Great Depression varied from nation to nation, it is deemed to have started in the U.S. with Black Tuesday on October 29, 1929, with global recoveries generally beginning in the mid-1930s.
The defunct Lehman Brother's investment bank collapsed in September 2008 under the weight of $600 billion in debt, which made it the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history and one of the major events during the global recession. The proceeds from the art collection, which contains many decorative corporate-art pieces that hung on the 31st and 32nd floor of bank's Manhattan executive offices and silver service dining rooms, will still be a modest amount towards satisfying the debt owed to Lehman Brothers creditors.
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