June 2024 Highwaymen Auction and Market Review

The Highwaymen market this month generated 158 Highwaymen paintings for sale via 3 Highwaymen focused auctions. There were probably another 20 Highwaymen paintings sold in scattered auctions that did not have a Highwaymen focus, although clearly, Highwaymen collectors follow paintings that are available from any auction house.

By any measure, 180 +/- Highwaymen paintings being sold publicly in a single month is a lot of paintings for the market to absorb. This situation is further exacerbated by being in the start of the summer “slow” season, and continuing growing concerns about the economy – which are now discussed more actively on a daily basis due to the current election cycle. It’s a bit of a “Perfect Storm” environment – putting pressure on sales.

Florida Art Auction started the month off with an unexpected and surprisingly weak auction. With 33 Highwaymen paintings offered, a surprising 9 paintings Passed. An additional 11 paintings did not reach their low estimate (target price), meaning 61% of the auction performed below minimum expectation.

I spoke with Brian Ramsthaler, Director of the Auction firm, to get his views on what happened, as the results seemed to have exhibited a shift in the market. His explanation was that many of his regular customers had just left for the summer at the beginning of June, and that the number of bidders at his auction had unexpectedly declined. He indicated that he was in touch with many of his customers during the week following the auction, and he had sold most of the paintings that had passed. While he said it was a disappointing result, in the end, he expressed his optimism that he did not see a fundamental decline in the market, but just a summer slowdown similar to the traditional markets of the pre-covid period.

Manor Auctions followed up two weeks later with a blockbuster auction of 96 paintings. I don’t know when the estimates were developed, but everyone I spoke with said the estimates looked more reasonable than usual as Manor’s painting estimates had been creeping up since the beginning of the year. The auction did well – but still had 28 of the 96 paintings (29%) not meeting the target price expectations. Two of the 96 paintings Passed.

Many dealers had commented to me that the quality of the paintings offered were not as high as usual, when compared to previous auctions in 2024. So given the somewhat lesser quality, and the large quantity, most people I spoke with were very relieved that the sale did well. The 96 Highwaymen paintings brought a total of $243,750 (hammer prices), against a total target estimate of $210,800. An overall solid performance.

Florida Highwaymen Auctions (the new kid on the block) concluded the month with their first auction only a week following the Manor sale. This was a first auction “to get the kinks out of the system” prior to what is expected to be a larger and more regular auction schedule beginning this Fall. The auction contained 29 Highwaymen paintings, many of them very high quality paintings, but the auction did not fare well. The general reaction of those I spoke with was that the estimates were much higher than they should have been. This resulted with a disproportionate number of paintings being passed.

Of the 29 paintings offered, 12 passed. Only 4 paintings in the auction reached or exceeded the target price. Two of the 4 Harold Newton paintings passed – a sign that something was amiss.
To be fair, I am not sure there was enough time to properly market this auction. It was announced only a few weeks prior – not the most effective way to launch a new auction business. But at the same time, it was viewed by the Auction Director as a “test run” – so I do not think we can reach any conclusions about the market in general based upon these results. There were only a handful of bidders on location at the auction, and a total of only about 65 viewers of the auction on LiveAuctioneers ( a very low number). With a small bidding audience, its difficult to produce high results.

If anything, the quality of the paintings was very strong. With more time and marketing, I expect the next auction in the Fall will perform significantly better.

As a sidenote to the Auctions, The Highwaymen Collectors (Myself and John Biederwolf, or the THC’s as Paul at Manor likes to call them) held a large exhibition and sale at This Is It Café in West Palm Beach, on June 29. This was yet another large offering of paintings presented to the market – sandwiched between the Manor and Florida Highwaymen auctions. With about 70 paintings presented for sale, the event produced strong sales ranging from the lowest priced paintings at about $600, up to the most expensive painting in the sale at over $10,000. Of course, in a sale, prices can be adjusted right up to the day of the sale, and we tried to price the paintings accordingly to reflect what we believed was a market slowdown. Priced correctly, we proved that demand for Highwaymen paintings was still strong !