Auction houses

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?

Christie's marks 25 years of the Washington Principles on Nazi-confiscated art

Auction house kicked off its year-long restitution programme in Paris last week which aims to educate collectors and buyers

Global demand for African art brings near-record year for South African auction house despite ‘much higher degrees of uncertainty’

Strauss & Co is launching a new sale format with the aim of fostering a more inclusive African art market

Early Freud beachscape painted on holiday with artist John Craxton—former friend, possible lover and bitter enemy—to be auctioned for £3.5m

Christie's will offer Scillionian Beachscape alongside a late garden scene by Freud, both of which were once in the collection of renowned patron Simon Sainsbury

Another monumental Munch painting once hidden from Nazis in a barn heads to the block

Heirs of Jewish art critic forced to sell the work estimated at $15m now set to benefit from Sotheby’s auction

New business, familiar face: former Sotheby’s chairperson Patti Wong launches advisory focused on top Asian collectors

Patti Wong & Associates will partner with London-based advisory The Fine Art Group to expand its global reach

Paris auction house Artcurial reports best year of sales—despite a downturn in trade of 20th- and 21st-century art

A record year for the French market was shored up by a particularly strong crop of Old Master work

‘An absolute art market record’: Christie’s posts $8.4bn in sales for 2022

Single-owner collections and millennials boost auction house’s revenues despite “challenging macro environment”

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

First wooden sculpture by Die Brücke founder Erich Heckel offered at auction goes on sale in Munich for €600,000

It comes to the block alongside another wooden sculpture by Heckel's contemporary Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

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

Poland says Kandinsky painting sold at Berlin auction house was stolen from the National Museum in Warsaw

Authorities are now taking legal steps to recover the work after it made €387,500 at Grisebach

Damaged Salvator Mundi copy by unknown artist sells for €1m at Christie's

Dated to a century after Leonardo's death, the work does not come from the artist's studio

Art marketcomment

'The downside to art world altruism that no one talks about'

Charity sales, while undoubtedly a positive, tend to skew valuable auction data upwards and muddy an already opaque market

Auctionsanalysis

Hong Kong's autumn auctions for modern and contemporary art saw a 38% drop from last year—but why?

Closed borders have impacted the selection of offerings this season, specialists say

Mexico condemns European auction houses’ sales of pre-Hispanic archaeological artefacts

The National Institute of Anthropology and History has recently accused two auction houses of holding problematic—yet not illegal—sales of historic objects

Fake video claims German auction house will raise funds for Ukraine by selling—and then destroying—Russian art

Bolland & Marotz in Bremen issued a statement this week saying it was "outraged" by the incident

Alleged Native American scalp seized from auction house specialised in Confederate and Nazi memorabilia

Authorities received an anonymous tip regarding an object listed for sale on the auction house’s website and described as a Mescalero Apache scalp

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

How does the market judge 'juvenile' work by name-brand blue-chip artists? Two early Warhol paintings are about to find out

Offered next week at Phillip's New York, the works were made during Warhol's student days and bear no resemblance to his signature styles

Qatari sheikh’s rare ivory mask, stolen from Benin City by the British, is one of five on public display—none in Nigeria

The 16th-century mask was withdrawn from sale at Sotheby’s over a decade ago amid escalating calls for restitution

Stolen Afghan manuscripts have been coming up for sale at major auction houses, according to research group

The Himaya project based in Qatar has been working with Interpol to identify artefacts trafficked to London, Paris and Amsterdam

Christie's comes under fire for 'art handler' streetwear collaboration

After multiple art handlers complained online about low wages, misrepresentation and class tourism, traces of the collaboration with Highsnobiety all but disappeared and a senior executive issued a mea culpa

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

Phillips partners with Beijing auction house Yongle for series of joint sales

Joint venture announced amid declining sales figures at Chinese auction house

'Will Christie’s strike gold with its first private fund for tech ventures?'

Crypto might have crashed, but online-only sales and other digital channels are allowing auction houses to deepen their business beyond the thin market for blue-chip art

Regional auction firm Rago/Wright continues to grow, merging with Chicago-based house Toomey & Co.

Each of the houses in the growing consortium will keep its identity, but share the back end of the business