Quick sales at decent prices at this month's contemporary art fairs in London and Paris indicate the market bouncing back from trauma but still not a pretty picture, experts said.

"The market is down but not out. Volumes and values are down, but there is a renewed confidence and a renewed spirit," Georgina Adam of The Art Newspaper told AFP.

Held consecutively over four days each in the two art capitals, the Frieze and FIAC fairs gathering hundreds of the world's top specialist contemporary galleries, wound up totting up a few impressive sales that prove there are still bidders and cash to be had for cutting-edge art.

FIAC organisers said its many deals were a "sign there is market confidence" while Frieze too noted "renewed confidence in the contemporary art market."

Proof or otherwise of the claims will come at next week's New York auctions, kicking off November 3.

After months of trauma that saw auctions shrivel, fairs cancelled and prices nosedive, Zurich-and-London gallery Hauser & Wirth sold a Louise Bourgeois sculpture at Frieze for €2.4-million, while New York's David Zwirner pocketed €680 000 for a Neo Rauch.

At the FIAC, New York's Skarstedt Gallery sold a Cindy Shermann photo for over a million euros, and Paris-New York's Yvon Lambert sold a Jenny Holzer for over €300 000.

"It's much better than last year, the market is healthier," Lambert told AFP.

The crisis was affecting collectors, said private French buyers Marc and Josee Gensollen. "We have to make sacrifices, but some of us choose not to sacrifice art."

"However, negotiating the price has become easier," he said.

In the mid-2000s, contemporary art — works by artists born after 1945 — saw a boom that sent prices soaring 85 percent from 2002 to 2008, with 620 percent more works sold at over a million euros in the same period, according to artprice.com.

The party ended in last year's economic turmoil, driving prices down 27 percent as billionaires and banks fell off the map, and finance from museums, funds and corporations melted away.

"The worst months were between last November and April. It was a terrible period," Adam said.

"Things have picked up since the Art Basel fair in June. There are buyers, but prices are down a lot," she said.

Earlier this month, a monumental work by the world's currently top-grossing artist Damien Hirst scooped a record at auction in Asia but fell short of its estimate.

Another of the globe's best-selling contemporary artists, Jean-Michel Basquiat, also recently slid 40 percent.

Betting on the appeal of novelty to counter the overriding gloom, London's avant-garde Frieze fair this year launched a new section titled Frame, where 29 galleries less than six years old showcased emerging talent from lesser-known territories.

FIAC on the other hand put the accent on blue-chip galleries and blue-chip talent.

It featured a specially designed show of Modern Art bringing together 25 museum-quality 20th century works gathered by some of the world's leading dealers, including Gagosian, PaceWildenstein and Acquavella.

Among them was a Mondrian titled "Composition with Blue, Red and Yellow", estimated at $35-million and said to be the most valuable in private hands. It was on hold for a private collector last weekend.

The Modern show, said Doris Ammann, who heads Zurich gallery Thomas Ammann Fine Art, underlined that "dealers, not just auction houses, had masterpieces for sale and could mount an international event."

Modern works by the likes of Le Corbusier, Nicolas de Stael and Dubuffet, including one at €1.5-million, sold within hours of opening at FIAC.

Lesser-known avant-garde creations possibly took longer to sell, but many on display found buyers.

"I think there is a new generation of collectors and a new public for contemporary art," said Chantal Crousel of the eponymous Paris gallery, which sold half of its works on show at the FIAC, for prices ranging from €550 to €300 000.

"There are people out there who want to live in the times and who want art that reflects the times."p>

AFP

What is a rand freeze? What does it mean to 'freeze' a currency - and what are the consequences? Here's how it works.

Great or gloomy? Do you think Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's first Budget speech was great or gloomy?

SA firms top world's best Three South African companies have made their way onto a list of the world's top 40 firms.