Handcrafted Living

The Hammer Price

Craft auctions are heating up. Here’s what you need to know before raising your paddle.

By Paola Singer
July 20, 2023

Summer 2023

#Goods

Free To Read

Photo courtesy of Bonhams

Craft collectors who bought works as early as the 1960s and ’70s are now selling their collections. Here, buyers attend a Bonhams auction in London.

Last July in Los Angeles, a stoneware vessel depicting Popeye the Sailor Man, made in 1987 by artists Magdalena and Michael Frimkess, sold at a Bonhams auction for $65,895. Everyone was shocked, especially the auctioneer. “That was several times the estimated range,” says Jason Stein, Bonhams’s director of Modern Decorative Art and Design. “In the early ’90s, when I got my start, it would have sold in the low thousands or even upper hundreds.”

The Frimkesses, a couple who began collaborating in the 1960s in California and quickly developed an irreverent style partly inspired by comics, are finding unprecedented fame as international hunger for distinctive handmade ceramics has surged in recent years. Buyers are not only flocking to galleries selling the work of young, up-and-coming ceramists, they are also heading to auctions in a quest to uncover or discover artists of yore. The same can be said for other categories of craft, including glass, fiber, and wood.

Sometimes, to their own surprise, auction houses with long trajectories in furnishings and decorative arts—places such as Freeman’s in Philadelphia, Bonhams in Los Angeles and New York City, Hindman in Chicago, and Rago in New Jersey—find they are humming with activity.

“We’re seeing the first generation of real craft collectors who were buying as early as the ’60s and ’70s now downsizing and bringing their collections to the secondary market,” says Tim Andreadis, director of Decorative Arts and Design at Freeman’s, the oldest auction house in the country. “I would say there’s been a definite growth of fifteen to twenty percent year over year.”

Despite our penchant for instant gratification and the abyss of mass-produced objects we encounter every moment of every day, American craft is at an apogee. Mastering a craft clearly takes years—it’s not the stuff of YouTube tutorials—and with that comes admiration. “Digital technology is in some ways as far from handwork as it’s possible to get: fast, frictionless, immaterial,” wrote craft expert Glenn Adamson in a 2021 Smithsonian magazine article. “Seemingly in response, however, a vogue for crafted goods has arisen.

Photo courtesy of Bonhams

Michael and Magdalena Frimkess’s glazed stoneware Popeye/Star Lite Drive In Vase, 1987, sold for $65,895 at auction, 19 x 9.75 in.

“We’re seeing the first generation of real craft collectors who were buying as early as the ’60s and ’70s now downsizing and bringing their collections to the secondary market.”

— Tim Andreadis of Freeman’s

This resurgence encompasses generations of talented artists who were overlooked or undervalued in decades past. Most people have heard names like George Nakashima and Wendell Castle, considered forefathers of the American craft movement, but there are other masterful makers from the last century who’ve received less attention, like Phillip Lloyd Powell and Wharton Esherick. While pieces by Nakashima or Castle have commanded up to six figures in recent auctions, those by Powell or Esherick can be found for low five figures, says David Rago, founder of the Rago Arts and Auction Center.

“The auction market practically didn’t exist before the ’90s,” he says, speaking specifically of craft. “It had its first peak around 2000, then hit a wall after Lehman’s crash, and now it’s back again.”

And yet he and other auctioneers say the secondary market has plenty of room for growth, especially as museums continue to include lesser-known craft artists in their programs. (After their work was featured in the Hammer biennial, Made in L.A. 2014, the Frimkesses became media darlings.)

So how does one navigate the broadening world of auctions? First and foremost, it’s worth noting that crafts rarely go up in value, so it’s important to choose something one wants to keep. “Don’t buy what I sell if you’re looking for a financial investment,” says David Rago. ”You’re living with quality materials and with the soul of the artist who made that piece, and what’s better than that?”

Longtime auction-goers echo that sentiment. “I feel like I’m connecting to our ancestors, and to a deeper dimension in life,” says James Wells, a retired health care professional and former Presbyterian minister who, together with his wife, Susan, has spent four decades buying art, decorative objects, and furnishings at auctions. “Someone really sacrificed themselves for this and made a lot of mistakes before they got it right.”

Wells, who lives in New Jersey, likes to personally inspect pieces before buying them, especially glass or pottery, which may have tiny imperfections or cracks.

“Once the hammer goes down, that’s it,” he says, which is why he gravitates toward renowned companies such as Rago, Pook & Pook, and Freeman’s. “With a quality auction house, there’s trust involved, and so the premium is worth it.” He’s referring to the fee that auction houses normally add to the hammer price, which can be between 15 and 25 percent, depending on the bid amount. Online aggregators like LiveAuctioneers or Invaluable charge an additional fee, some-where between 2 and 5 percent. These are great places to browse for what’s available on the market, but keep in mind that not all auction houses sell through all aggregators, and these sites are not responsible for what’s being sold. “We don’t always use Invaluable, but we do use LiveAuctioneers,” says Suzanne Perrault of Rago. “It’s not necessarily one-stop shopping; I would advise buyers to set up alerts online when they’re looking for something.”

Photo courtesy of Bonhams

At Bonhams: Three 1950s glazed terracotta vases by Stig Lindberg; Morigami Jin’s The Ocean Current, a madake bamboo and rattan basket; Hayami Arakawa’s 2004 poplar and auto laquer Gruen Stuhl (Prickless Cacti Chair); and a walnut coffee table by T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings circa 1955.

While many insiders stressed the importance of seeing a piece in real life before making a purchase, even staunch old-schoolers recognize that online shopping is here to stay. Luckily, there are ways to conduct a thorough vetting from afar. Digital catalogs now show high-definition images of objects from different perspectives, and buyers can request a video tour of an upcoming sale (most auctioneers are willing to do this for mid- to high-priced items). There’s also something called a condition report, a detailed document describing the condition of a lot or item. “They’re free of charge, and they also allow you to engage with the specialist,” says Hudson Berry, director and senior specialist of Hindman’s Modern Design department.

When he can’t attend an auction in person, Wells prefers to bid over the phone rather than online. “That way you can pause for a second, and the person on the phone will let the auctioneer know ‘not so fast,’” he says. Although Wells believes one should always add an “emotional percentage” to a desired object, he also says it’s essential to have a maximum in mind and to avoid getting caught up in a bidding war.

Pieces that come from the artist’s personal collection (if the artist kept them because they loved them), those made for major patrons (especially if this happened a generation or two ago), and pieces that have been with one family since their creation tend to command higher prices. Yet the matter of provenance is not meaningful to some buyers, or even to some auction houses. “I’m not a big fan of provenance because it often obscures our ability to ‘see’ a work,” says Rago, adding that the “beauty embodied by a piece” should be its sole source of gravitas.

So, in the end, both the making and the procuring of craft are labors of love.

bonhams.com | freemansauction.com |hindmanauctions.com | rogarts.com | pookandpook.com

Paola Singer is a New York City–based journalist who writes about culture, design, and architecture for the New York Times, Architectural Digest, and Condé Nast Traveler, among other publications.

Photo courtesy of Hindman

In 2021, Hindman sold Judy Kensley McKie’s mahogany and mixed media Butterfly Cabinet, 1993, for $22,500, 72 x 34 x 15 in.

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