2023 Oceanic Art Market Report 2023 Oceanic Art Market Report By Michael Hamson Introduction As 2023 came to an end, I thought it useful to look back at the auction results for the past year to see if trends I’ve seen in my own business also took place in public sales. After doing so, I was struck by how similar my conclusions are today compared to what I wrote four years ago in my 2020 Oceanic Art Market Report, but conditions have become even more extreme—specifically that the large supply of pieces visible online result in increasingly discerning collectors. In other words, more objects to view enable more opportunities for comparison, resulting in buyers becoming better educated and more selective. The net effect is an unrelenting focus on the top end of the market, with the very best of each category—what I call “pinnacle pieces”—often driving prices to record levels. Besides the extreme top end, there are other notable segments of market strength. “Specialist objects”—superb examples of rare and unusual types—not necessarily of the iconic nature of pinnacle pieces—always generated strong interest. Early and noteworthy provenance is of growing importance, especially when there is a direct link to 1920s Paris and the Surrealists. Likewise, material fresh to the market—meaning collections surfacing for the first time after 40 or 50 year that bring long coveted objects back to light--tend to get otherwise blasé collectors snapping to attention. This hyper-focus on the very top does filter down somewhat to the next 30 percent of high-quality objects; unfortunately, interest in the remaining 70 percent of the market is subdued—resulting in many otherwise fine objects being undervalued and sometimes unsold. The Data The Oceanic art market remains robust, but it seemed to take a breather from the strong 2021 and 2022 results. Unlike the previous two years, there was not a single piece that sold over a million dollars at auction in 2023. But there were 15 pieces selling between $100,000 and $1,000,000, an increase from the three that sold in that range in 2022. There were 18 objects in the $50,000 to $100,000 range—three more than in 2022. And 122 pieces in what I consider the Oceanic art market’s sweet spot between $10,000 and $50,000. As usual, the bulk of the sales were in the under-$5000 range—558 pieces, or 68%, of the 818 pieces sold at auction last year. Market Strengths: Pinnacle Objects In his book, “Affinities of Form,” about the Raymond and Laura Wielgus Collection, the African art-historian Roy Seiber recounts how he and Ray Wielgus would pour over stacks of illustrations searching for the finest examples of a given type, whether a certain African mask, Sepik figure or Polynesian object. I always admired this commitment to connoisseurship and the desire to locate, debate, and ultimately proclaim greatness on a particular object. For Wielgus and a few collectors every generation this is not a purely theoretical discussion, but rather an ongoing mission to acquire what I call pinnacle pieces, objects that are the absolute best of their type. It is not unusual for this sort of collector to have the means to accomplish this collecting strategy, and the spike in price on certain pinnacle objects result when two such individuals or institutions collide. Last year it happened with a superb Karawari River Yipwon figure that sold for more than $5 million, and in 2021 it was the Mortlock Island mask at Christie’s Perinet sale that breached the $10 million mark. Lake Sentani figure, Christie’s Paris, 22 June 2023, lot 8—$386,511 Nothing so spectacular happened in 2023. The top price for an Oceanic art object was a Lake Sentani post figure that went for $386,511 at Christie’s Paris—which, considering the rarity, beauty, and provenance (Paul Wirz, Jacques Viot, Pierre Loeb, and other notables), seemed a real bargain. This figure was photographed wonderfully in situ by Paul Wirz in 1922 and again by Jacques Viot in 1929. Such early, rock-solid, and beautifully photographed provenance is golden, though it can still be, in this case, undervalued. Fijian Gugu club, Christie’s Paris, 26 October 2023, lot 44—$279,524 The second most-expensive piece sold in 2023 was this superb Fijian gugu club sold at Christie’s in October. It is a world-class object at the very top of its category that catapulted previous record prices for the type in reaching $279,524. I cannot help but think the recent exhibitions such as the “Power and Prestige: The Art of Clubs in Oceania” in Venice and the musée du quai Branly in Paris have lit a fire of interest in Polynesian clubs of exceptional quality. Jean Fritts, former International Chairman, African and Oceanic Art at Sotheby’s, concurred and mentioned that this club and another superb Gugu club sold by Sotheby’s Paris in July at the Marc de Monbrison sale for $181,845 both benefited by their massive scale and abstract design that really highlighted their sculptural quality. Comparison of three Gugu clubs—Respectable to Great It is worth examining the escalation in price for these gugu clubs as it exemplifies a market truism—that steps upward in quality correspond to substantial, and at times seemingly irrational, jumps in price. In the image above, we start on the left with a perfectly old and legitimate example that would suit many collectors looking to build a collection of Polynesian clubs—this one sold for $2445 at Zemanek-Münster. To the right is one at Sotheby’s New York in October of 2022 from the Seymour Lazar Collection that sold for $6930. This gugu is ancient, of excellent quality, and would be a welcome addition to any serious collection. On the right is a beautiful top-end example that sold for $30,201 from Sotheby’s Paris back in 2022—thus the jump from excellent to top is more than a 400% price increase. Comparison of three Gugu clubs—Great to Pinnacle Piece In the next image, we continue the progression starting with the top example sold at Sotheby’s Paris in April of 2022 for $30,201—which is worth noting was two months before the opening of “Power and Prestige: The Art of Clubs in Oceania” in Venice and the musée du quai Branly in Paris. One has to think this club would have reached a higher level if it had been offered after this inspiring exhibition. To the right is a pinnacle gugu club sold at the Marc de Monbrison sale at Sotheby’s Paris in July of 2023. It is a world-class club that achieved a then-record price of $181,845. That price opened many eyes, including my own, to the incredible market heights Polynesian clubs could achieve. And yet, just a few months later came the great James Hooper gugu club at Christie’s Paris on October 26. This massive example blew past the previous record price to $279,524, highlighting the Herculean strength of the market for pinnacle pieces of iconic forms. What happens next in the market for gugu clubs? Two things, first, there may or may not be room for another pinnacle piece to breach that quarter-million-dollar mark. A strong market does not necessarily mean an especially deep market. Maybe there were just three collectors determined to get a pinnacle example and now two have achieved that goal, potentially leaving the third with less-resolute and deep-pocketed competitors. This is hard to know. But what is now clear is what these two market records have done is to activate that gulf—that economic space above what was before considered the upper reaches of price for gugu clubs—$143,610 for the Masco gugu club sold at Binoche et Giquello in June of 2017 and the $68,825 paid for the Richard Kelton gugu sold at Bonham’s New York in November of 2019. Thus, the paradigm of price possibility for gugu clubs has forever shifted upward. Does this paradigm shift elevate the entire market for gugu or other Polynesian clubs? No, unfortunately not. In fact, it probably further accentuates the gap between the bulk of good-to-great clubs and those apex-level pieces. Specialist Objects Another area of strength in the Oceanic art market is in what I call “specialist objects.” Unlike pinnacle pieces which are often iconic in nature, specialist objects are those that light a fire inside the bellies of true connoisseurs and experts. They are at or near the summit of their respective categories, but they’re from a genre not necessarily considered sexy at the moment. Solomon Island Canoe Prow Ornament & Kaniet Island bowl Two such objects are illustrated above. On the left is a superb and rare Solomon Island canoe-prow ornament from Santa Isabel Island that was a highlight of Sotheby’s Marc de Monbrison sale in July. Unlike the popular nguzu-nguzu canoe-prow figures of which there have been 60 offered at auction in the last 20 years, the Monbrison example is a type that is extremely scarce. That this piece reached $118,899 might seem exorbitant until realizing that this is by far the best of the seven known examples that have ever appeared at auction going back to the 1930s. To its right is a beautiful and ancient Kaniet Island bowl from the Charles Ratton Collection that recently sold at the Collin du Bocage auction in Paris in September. This too is the best example of a very rare object to reach the public market and justifies its $57,813 price. With the thousands of Oceanic art objects that one can see these days, a bowl like this shakes you out of your reverie, leaving zero chance that its obscurity might cause it to fall through the cracks of the auction market. Coastal Sepik mask and Kanak club While not slipping through the cracks, these two objects were undervalued in my opinion. On the left is an incredibly old and fine Coastal Sepik mask that had the unfortunate luck to be presented in the auction catalog next to two uninspiring African masks. I applaud the buyer of this ancient mask for overcoming its minor damage and its unwarranted guilt by association with the two African masks. At $40,441, it did not come cheap but well below what it should have reached based upon its quality. Not all specialist pieces sell for huge sums. On the right is a very rare type of Kanak club from New Caledonia that sold for $6,600 at an Arte Prmitivo auction in New York this past September. The club has a provenance going back to Morris Pinto in the 1970s and is both rare and elegant. The price it achieved showed that it was recognized for what it was, but it failed to interest the highest echelon of the market—thus exposing a rich vein of opportunity that I will discuss later. Provenance As one would expect, provenance is of ever-increasing importance. But what I found interesting is how this varies—with the oldest provenance not necessarily the most sought-after. One of the earliest and most-securely documented provenances one encounters in Oceanic art is that of Augustus Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers and the museum he created at Farnham in Dorset, England, in the 1880s and 1890s. Papuan Gulf Gope board ex. Pitt Rivers Museum 1897 The Papuan Gulf gope board that sold at Lempertz, Brussels, in February as part of the Seymour and Alyce Lazar Collection is a case in point. On its own, the spirit board is a fine example, classic, obviously late nineteenth-century in style and of a rare type with a circular head above a more-traditional pointed bottom portion featuring a splayed-lizard design. It fetched $13,876 at the sale which would be expected for an early spirit board. Yet, the piece had a Pitt Rivers Museum provenance dating back to 1897, with a wonderful watercolor drawing in the museum’s acquisition journals which securely and definitively tethered the object back at least 126 years. If this gope board profited by this fantastic provenance, it was minimal. New Ireland Tatanua mask, ex. Paul Eluard and André Breton Collection This was not the case for the above New Ireland tatanua dance mask sold at Sotheby’s Paris in February 2023. While the mask is a fine early example, the fact that it was originally owned by Paul Eluard and André Breton accounts for a hefty portion of its $65,177 price. Oceanic art’s connection to the history of Modern Art and the Surrealist movement is well known and a huge factor in its value when the link between the object and a key personality like André Breton is rock solid, as it is with the tatanua mask illustrated in the 1931 auction of Breton and Paul Eluard Collection. Middle Sepik River stool, Lair Dubreuil Auction, Paris November 7, 1929 Those first groundbreaking auctions in Paris in the late 1920s and early 1930s—where Oceanic art was presented as legitimate art and not ethnographic specimens—are incredibly significant even when the object had no direct connection to a particularly cherished artist. This was the case for the above Middle Sepik River stool that sold for $52,455 at Christie’s Paris on June 22, 2023. Originally, it was part of a Lair Dubreuil sale and illustrated in the catalog from November 1929. While this is a fine old Sepik stool of high quality and beautiful painted designs, without that 1920s Paris provenance I cannot imagine this piece reaching anywhere near the amount it did this past June. Fresh to the Market It is hard to overemphasize the importance of an object being fresh to the market. Collectors whose eyes have glossed over from viewing an endless parade of art across their computer screens sometimes need to be shocked out of their TikTok trances, and a good way to accomplish this is with objects of stunning beauty, incredible quality, early provenance or … by bringing something fresh to the market, unseen for a generation or more. As we will see in the following section, the energy created by even the greatest objects may dim if it’s bounced from auction to auction or dealer to dealer. Conversely, a great object’s market potential increases over the decades since last being seen. Jean Fritts remarked to me that the success of the Marc de Monbrison sale at Sotheby’s Paris in July that sold 100% of the lots was noticeably helped by the fact the objects had been off the market for the previous 40 years. Within my own experience, I can attest that there is nothing better than fresh material to activate the saliva glands of serious collectors. What Happened? Before I discuss specific opportunities in the current Oceanic art market, I want to analyze what happened with two excellent objects that came up for sale in 2023 but then failed to match their past auction results—which runs counter to the overall market trend and prevailing logic. To understand this dynamic, I must explain the influence that one determined collector can exert over a large segment of the field. For the 30-year period between 1979 and 2009, John Friede was the jet engine powering the market for New Guinea art. While the demand and interest for New Guinea material had been relatively broad and strong, Friede’s relentless pursuit for the best objects in all categories created an energy across the field and a powerful updraft that sent a steady stream of top pieces marching toward Rye, New York. When a superb piece of New Guinea art came up at auction, other serious collectors only hoped John Friede already had one better and thus would not be bidding. John Friede’s interest was not restricted to iconic figures and masks but extended to all genres—shell pectorals, wooden bowls, food pounders, cassowary bone daggers, hand drums—anything that was unusual, great, noteworthy, and would elevate the quality and importance of the collection. Friede’s passion, connoisseurship, and seemingly unlimited finances buoyed the entire market for New Guinea art and set auction records for three decades. Massim lime spatula Massim lime spatulas were a particular strength of John Friede’s collection. The elegant lime spatula above was part of the Freida and Milton Rosenthal Collection and sold at Sotheby’s New York in November of 2008 for $68,500. I am not sure if John Friede was one of the bidders, because by the end of 2008 his collecting days were starting to end. But what I do know is that the glow he had created in the market still burned bright, and it surely contributed to the high price the spatula achieved—to what I would call a “Friede price.” Fifteen years later, when this same graceful spatula surfaced at Christie’s Paris in June of 2023 the glow surrounding top-quality Massim spatulas had dimmed. The piece still fetched $44,173, a very strong price, and I believe in some part boosted by the recognition and appreciation John Friede attached to what others might consider a minor genre. Tami Island “acrobat” headrest I call this Tami Island headrest the Acrobat. It is one of three known with the classic figure belly down, back arched, chest elevated in a push-up position with its feet pressed upward to the neck support. It is a remarkable sculpture that exemplifies the ingenuity, creative freedom, and what I call “one-upmanship” that New Guinea artists possessed, which continually pushed the bounds of their art. By December of 2013, when this neckrest went for sale at Christie’s Paris, John Friede was no longer collecting. Yet the interest and enthusiasm he had fostered with his collection now at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and his monumental book, “New Guinea Art: Masterpieces from the Jolika Collection of Marcia and John Friede,” still lifted the field and probably had some influence on the $34,401 the neckrest brought at the time. In June of 2023, the neckrest reappeared at Christie’s Paris and sold for $19,326. What happened? Well, the market for New Guinea art that John Friede’s influence had for decades supported had finally settled back to a reality that did not include him. Is that bad? No, because it is an accurate reflection of today’s market—mature, knowledgeable, and increasingly selective, thanks in large part to John Friede. Opportunities A mature market does not mean an efficient and logical one. With increasing maturity come lapses and blind spots that, in terms of today’s Oceanic art market, can lead to opportunities. One of the beauties of Oceanic art is its amazing breadth in culture groups and object types, such that while prices for pinnacle pieces of iconic types reach the stratosphere, there are many different genres of non-iconic forms that go for far, far less. There has always been and will always be great pieces at auction that fall through the cracks—which, unfortunately, are always fairly easy to spot AFTER the fact. Huon Gulf ladle, New Britain tapa and Tolai axe Here are three—all very good pieces that either undersold or went unsold. On the left is an excellent Huon Gulf/Tami Island ladle, of a very early style with a beautifully carved face and the exact patina one would expect on this object type. The piece proves the point that you can still find world-class examples of non-iconic genres of New Guinea art at very modest prices—$1074 for the ladle. In the middle is an early tapa fragment from a Baining culture mask formerly in the Jolika Collection of Marcia and John Friede. While Baining masks are quite common, 95% that one finds on the market are post-1950. The Friede example is late nineteenth-century and of a higher level of quality. At $2805 it was not exactly given away, but this again exemplifies the real opportunities in the market for top-quality art at fairly modest prices. On the right is a Tolai culture, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea dance axe—and, as with the Baining tapa, a fine early piece that the market could not be bothered with and went unsold. Economics of Scale Case Study: Shields A particular soft spot in today’s Oceanic art market is with large-scale objects such as shields. This makes sense when considering that, with many established collections built over decades, wall space is now at a premium. The passion and drive to collect may still be strong but the physical, suitable display area may now be limited. The present weakness in the market for Oceanic shields appears to be the result. Simbai, Wanuma, and Sepik River shields I have to say it is a bit discouraging seeing this absolutely ancient Simbai shield on the left selling for $296. Yes, the market is mature and discerning but you would think it could recognize the supreme antiquity of this shield. It is of course pre-contact, stone-carved with an archaic design so worn that it hovers almost out of reach, a specter of what it once was. Still a darling of a shield that, if it was personally aware of the price it fetched, would surely be blushing. In the middle is a pre-contact, stone-carved shoulder shield from the remote Wanuma area in Madang Province’s Adelbert Mountain Range. Twenty years ago, I field-collected in the villages strung out along these beautiful low mountains and found a number of such heart-shaped shields—but few as old and nice as this one with its bold red stripe and handle holes along the top edge completely worn through from use. Sure, its minimalist aesthetic might not slap you in the face. But, as an excellent example of a rare shield, I would have thought this would have found a buyer. On the right is a classic Middle Sepik River shield with a strong design and nice colors that failed to sell even with a modest estimate of $2000–4000. That it was over 66” in height had to be a factor. The bottom line is that New Guinea shields are currently undervalued, and present a good opportunity for new collectors to acquire a worthy object at a very reasonable price. Conclusions Today’s Oceanic art market is mature, sober, and discerning. At the very top end there is incredible strength with pinnacle pieces being hotly contested resulting in a series of auction records being broken. Below that godly arena is where mere mortals compete for the best objects: the realm of serious collectors and many of us professional dealers looking for material. This level remains robust with records broken for superb specialist pieces that get the connoisseurs frantically tapping the bid button. However, below that lies the next 70–80% of the market that in large part sells but rarely with enthusiasm. Now that everyone is online and objects from every dealer, auction house, gallery, and museum are visible at any given moment, collectors have enormous visual resources at their fingertips. On one hand, this plethora of visual information is a godsend, that can fast-track research and expertise; however, it can also flatten enthusiasm. Good objects can seem commonplace and uninteresting. Thus, the ever-increasing allure of early provenance or the excitement when a collection of fresh material, off the market for half a century, surfaces. When good is not good enough, opportunities arise. With so much attention and money flowing to the top 10%, the rest of market is bursting with solid, authentic, fine-quality objects worthy in any collection—many better than what fills the storage rooms of major museums. So be smart, do your research, ask for extra photos and condition reports—and feel free to seek advice. Cheers, Michael Hamson
