Scott Reyburn

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Sotheby’s will pay $100m for the Whitney Museum’s Marcel Breuer building

The auction house expects to move into the Madison Avenue building in 2025, vacating its current York Avenue headquarters

Carlie Porterfield. , with additional reporting by Scott Reyburn
Art marketanalysis

Wealthy American art collectors capitalise on tax-efficient gift scheme

Donor Advised Funds allow individuals to claim tax relief while they are still alive through making gifts of art and other assets—without obligation to pay out money to charity straight away

Artists paid less than £3 an hour for public art commissions, report finds

The Structurally F–cked survey looked at artists' pay and conditions, and found a "culture of low fees, unpaid labour, and systemic exploitation"

Conferencesanalysis

Art for Tomorrow conference | What can art do for our democratically depleted, digitally distracted societies?

The role of art in a time of crisis was the subject of a three-day discussion between leading cultural figures in Florence last week

Art marketanalysis

Is art once again becoming a lifestyle choice rather than an asset?

Results from the recent auction season, where young, “red-chip” artists surpassed expectations, while big names of Modern art went unsold, point to a shift in how collectors think

Art marketanalysis

What lies behind the demise of British art and antiques fairs?

The problematic trend could reflect a wider international problem for the art market

Does the West really care about human rights and art washing?

As the art world continues to do business in authoritarian regions, some question its claim to being a force for universal good

Art marketanalysis

How online buyers of luxury collectibles reshaped auctions in an economic slump

Turnover is increasing at a time of global turmoil—and it is mostly down to growing digital sales and new tastes among the 1%

The donating game: How artists like Tracey Emin are driving philanthropy in the art world

The British artist is among those who have donated millions of pounds’ worth of art to charities—perhaps we could all take a leaf out of her book?

Are charity art auctions, not donations, the new model for offsetting taxes?

Paul Allen’s estate has pledged proceeds of its $1.6bn Christie’s sale to unnamed philanthropic causes, while FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried vaguely promised to give away his fortune

Art marketcomment

The elephant in the booth: the environmental toll of art fairs

With a host of identikit international fairs showing works already viewed online and often already sold, is there a point to generating all those air miles?

Brexit woes contribute to slim Old Master sales in London

Nonetheless, buoyed by the Grasset collection, Sotheby's posted its best results in six seasons and Christie's sale was up 26% up on last December

Old Mastersanalysis

Old Masters need reinventing to avoid being frozen out

Last year, European Old Masters represented just 4% of the world’s $26.3bn art auction sales. In our contemporary-obsessed world, we’re just not paying them enough attention

Can art actually help improve Saudi Arabia's abject human rights record?

Culture is being used by Saudi Arabia to project an image of a state that “enriches lives, celebrates national identity and builds understanding between people”

Five years since the $450m Salvator Mundi sale: a first-hand account of the nonsensical auction

At the record-breaking sale at Christie's New York on 15 November 2017, the audience gasped and whooped as if they were at a very exclusive firework display

Art marketanalysis

Why the global explosion of billionaires will keep auction houses afloat—for now

Record-breaking sales from the collections of Microsoft founder Paul G. Allen and the acrimoniously divorced Macklowes herald the start of a 20-year bonanza for auction houses

Art marketcomment

Five years after #MeToo, what has changed for female artists?

Recently, some major galleries have signed high-profile women, many of whom launched artistic careers long before the industry cared

Art marketcomment

Pakistani artists raise money for its devastating floods—and question which causes garner art world support

Osman Yousefzada and nine others sold specially created prints, but Pakistan’s worst natural disaster in living memory has yet to galvanise the industry

Art marketfeature

Paris vs London: which capital will win the hearts of art collectors?

London’s struggles with the reality of leaving the European Union coupled with a government unsympathetic to the arts means the French capital is gaining the edge over its rival

All hot air on climate action? Auction houses pledge to cut CO2 while organising global tours for star lots

In our new series Reality Bites, we assess whether the art market's key players are addressing the urgent issues affecting the wider world

Art marketanalysis

How do you place a price tag on art in an age of perpetual crisis?

Figures are going beserk for work that looks good on Instagram—but the market struggles to find the same fervour for conceptually ambitious, politically engaged art

Art marketanalysis

Auction houses say the art market is booming. But what lurks beneath these shiny numbers?

Despite what hyperbolic marketing might suggest, sales of 20th-century titans are failing to reach expected price points

Auctionsanalysis

Digging deep for Old Master treasures: mixed results at London sales as dearth of 'good material' continues

Christie's made a perky £28.1m while Sotheby's raised only £7.1m—a dramatic drop from pre-pandemic totals

Art marketanalysis

The Venice Biennale has long been known as the world's most discreet art fair—where does Ukraine fit into that?

In the wake of Russia’s invasion, some of the spending power at the exhibition is being directed towards good causes

Art marketanalysis

Nefarious art world players: after Russian freeze out, will Saudi Arabia or China be next?

For decades Russian billionaires were feted for their free spending on the arts. Now, they are officially personae non gratae. But what of the other individuals and regimes with dubious reputations?

What does the Art Basel and Frieze art fair duopoly mean for the market?

After Fiac is muscled out of Paris, just two big players are left in the Modern and contemporary events market

How auction houses became the big winners of the pandemic

With the forced shift to online sales due to Covid-19 restrictions, global sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips boomed in 2021, with an increased focus on luxury goods as the rich get richer

Art marketanalysis

Have price and value in the art market parted ways for good?

In the current climate, where a teenaged NFT artist can sell for $2.9m and Old Masters have fallen out of fashion, the fickle art market has become the presiding judge of aesthetic achievement

'There are too many auctions and not enough collectors': Christie's and Sotheby's thin Old Master sales fetch a combined £29.3m in London

The star of the sales was a pair of half-length portraits by Van Dyck that sold for £6.2m at Sotheby's, the second-highest price for the artist at auction