Want to Buy Art Without Breaking the Bank? Consider a Drawing

At the auctions, thanks to competition between specialist dealers and collectors, the more important works fetched reassuringly high prices, and overall selling rates were healthy enough. On March 22, Sotheby’s held its second annual works on paper auction during the salon, netting €5.8 million from 141 lots, with 74 percent of the lots successful. Works by modern masters predictably dominated, with a top price of €669,000 given for a large 1950s Chagall watercolor of newlyweds and a bouquet of flowers in a moonlit window. Smaller drawings by major names such as Paul Delvaux and Paul Signac were selling for less than €10,000.

“A lot of the market is driven by financial concerns. People want big iconic works,” said Mr. Breuer-Weil, the British artist and collector. “If you buy a drawing, you can get a work by the artist for a 200th of the price of a painting.”

Across town at the Drawing Now fair, there was also value to be had from contemporary artists who focused solely on draftsmanship.

The Birmingham, Ala., dealer Maus Contemporary represents the estate of the African-American artist Eugene J. Martin, whose works have been acquired by a number of regional museums in the United States. In the 1960s and ’70s, Martin, who was influenced by European modernism, was too poor to buy painting materials, so he instead made small-scale abstracts on paper. A striking Constructivist figure made in 1972 during the protests over the Vietnam War was bought by a French collector for €4,000.

“The French have a romantic attachment with the nobility of paper,” Guido H. Maus, the gallery’s director, said, referring to France’s long tradition of collecting drawings and prints, reflected in the number of specialist galleries that are a distinctive feature of Paris.

A drawing by Bloemaert or Martin might not impress a hedge fund manager who comes around for dinner. But as the prices for paintings by blue-chip names soar far beyond the reach of the average collector, “Drawing Week” is a welcome reminder that there are approachable ways to live with original art.

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