Hedge-Fund Pet Prince Among Artists Testing November Auctions

According to Bloomberg.com, movie star Hugh Grant and art trader Adam Lindemann are among the profit takers leaping into the New York auction fray this month, when a record number of artworks will test the limits of an exuberant market.

A 1963 turquoise Andy Warhol portrait of a red-lipped Elizabeth Taylor, ``Liz,'' bought by Grant for $3.6 million at Sotheby's New York in 2001, returns to Christie's International on Nov. 13, tagged to sell for as much as $35 million.

Lindemann's shiny hot-pink Jeff Koons ``Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold)'' is estimated to reap up to $20 million at Sotheby's on Nov. 14. New York-based Lindemann hopes to flip the 3,500-pound sculpture, completed just last year, for about five times what he paid Gagosian Gallery, two dealers said.

These and other sellers at 11 auctions held Nov. 6-15 are offering 1,892 Impressionist, modern and contemporary works, projected to tally as much as $2 billion. In May, similar sales totaled a record $1.4 billion from 1,804 lots.

``There's no restraint,'' said Miami-based art adviser Lisa Austin. ``In the financial market, you have analysts who hold things down based on earnings. Here it's whatever the market will bear, without regard to who will be important in the long run.''

This month's sales follow a blockbuster May auction season remembered for David Rockefeller's $72.8 million Rothko at Sotheby's and $71.7 million Warhol at Christie's. November's evening sales include 18 Warhols and seven Rothkos.

``We were offered Rothkos right, left and center,'' said Alex Rotter of Sotheby's contemporary-art department.

Sell Now or Else

Auction house executives urged collectors to sell now or face an uncertain future for Wall Street and the U.S. economy.

There are already signs of a pullback. At auctions held earlier this month in London, lesser works by Damien Hirst, Warhol and others went unsold.

``If it's not A-plus or it's slightly pricey, people don't feel the urgency,'' said Christie's senior contemporary art expert Laura Paulson.

Naturally, most auction-house executives and dealers say they aren't worried.

``There is a very consistent sense of confidence in the art market,'' said David Norman, head of Sotheby's Impressionist and modern-art department. ``There have been no defections. People haven't called wanting to pull things out of the sale.''

Today's diversity of buyers, including new ones from Asia, Russia and the Middle East, suggests to some that there won't be a repeat of the 1991 art-market crash.

``In 1991, you had a homogeneous group of buyers,'' said dealer Michael Findlay, director of Acquavella Galleries. ``The Japanese, who represented a third of the market, stopped buying all at once. I don't know what's the equivalent of that today. If all the Russians stopped buying, it would dent, but it wouldn't mean that all prices would drop.''

Cezanne, Matisse

The sales begin on Nov. 6 with Impressionist and modern works at Christie's, 91 lots expected to tally as much as $486.9 million. (The sale is so large that it starts a half-hour earlier than usual, at 6:30 p.m.). Marquee works include a cluster of shimmering green Cezannes and a sultry 1937 Matisse ``L'Odalisque, Harmonie Bleue,'' estimated to go for up to $20 million.

Sotheby's follows on Nov. 7 with 76 works projected to total $494 million. One highlight is a 1931 Picasso painting, ``La Lampe,'' being sold by one of the artist's heirs and estimated as high as $35 million. The daughter of Joan Whitney Payson, the late collector and owner of the New York Mets, is offering Paul Gauguin's 1892 ``Te Poipoi (The Morning),'' depicting a half-nude woman bathing by the water. Painted on the artist's first trip to Tahiti, the green, peach and blue canvas is estimated to sell for as much as $60 million.

Basquiat, Richter

The more volatile contemporary-art auctions follow in the second week. Christie's Nov. 13 sale, projected to total $373.3 million, is heavy on Warhol, Rothko, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Gerhard Richter. Sotheby's Nov. 14 sale, estimated to tally $284 million, features two Francis Bacon paintings, including a 1969 self-portrait expected to fetch as much as $15 million.