Auction houses

Sotheby’s sales for 2021 surpass $7.3bn, the highest total in company history

The firm’s sales were bolstered by a sharp increase in online bidders, who accounted for 92% of all bids this year

Art smuggled from junta-controlled Myanmar to be auctioned in New York this week

Proceeds from Artists Against Tyranny auction at Jane Lombard Gallery will support pro-democracy movement in junta-controlled Myanmar

Robert Bociaga

Art advisors Gurr Johns buys (another) auction house, 'catering to an under-loved sector of the market for works of art under $100,000'

The firm is buying the London-based books and works on paper specialist Forum Auctions—it previously bought Dreweatts and Bloomsbury for £1.25m in 2017

Art marketanalysis

Can an art market wild about young 'red-chip' artists and NFTs still value blue-chip, white male masters? Answer: Yes, for now

New York's "gigafortnight" sales of the Cox and Macklowe collections showed there is still a market for classics—even while a Beeple sells for $29m to a tweeting tech entrepreneur

Strong prices for female painters and young artists—but Francis Bacon's Pope sells to the guarantor—at Phillips's $137.9m auction in New York

The 20th century and contemporary art evening sale saw stiff competition for works by Shara Hughes, Joan Mitchell, Amy Sherald and Cecily Brown

New app artpass ID promises art market due diligence in one click—but does it really work?

Artpass ID has been created by Dutch tech entrepreneurs David Dehaeck and Nathalie Haveman, and has Rakhi Talwar, former global compliance head at Christie’s, on the team

Crypto wallets at the ready: Sotheby's to accept live bidding in ethereum on two Banksy works

The auction house made Banksy's world record for the pre-shredded work Love is in the Bin

Former Bonhams owner Robert Brooks dies

The ambitious auctioneer started out in car racing before going into art and antiques, eventually retiring to his farm near Exmoor to rear a herd of beef cattle

Art marketinterview

Need a 100-year-old Inuit parka made from seal guts? Dealer Peter Petrou to sell collection at Sotheby's

The London-based dealer of four decades is downsizing and having a 200-lot sale of contemporary art, Modern furniture, ethnographic art and antiquities

Art marketanalysis

Connoisseurship: is it time for a comeback?

When prices and cultural value are so easily confused, there is a case for the return of critical evaluation—in updated form

Follow the money: Christie's bets on Hong Kong with vast new headquarters as clients in Asia spend over $1bn so far this year

Auction house will move into Zaha Hadid-designed luxury tower The Henderson in 2024, where it will hold year-round sales and exhibitions

Can auctions save the earth? Christie's to fundraise for environmental charity by selling works by Cecily Brown and Rashid Johnson

The auction house has teamed with up Gallery Climate Coalition to raise between $5m-$10m for ClientEarth

Christie’s results for first half of 2021 show marked shift towards Asia, online and private sales—and female auctioneers

Auction sales, according to the analysts ArtTactic, are up 230% to a total of $5.9bn so far this year at the three major auction houses, Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips

Legal battle over €15m Leonardo discovery: owner, Tajan auction house and French government fight it out

An export ban was placed on the drawing in 2017 but the French culture ministry has not purchased the drawing as planned

Sotheby's doubles down on private sales with Monte-Carlo gallery

Seasonal two-storey space is newest addition to Monaco's growing commercial art scene

'Jobs for the boys… why I'm starting to feel old amid the new art world order'

The thrusting land of NFTs and tech nomads favours the young—and has yet to shake off the old ties of nepotism

Access denied: British auction house executives refused US visas to travel for marquee New York sales week

But the show goes on at Sotheby’s and Christie’s with a mixture of in-person and remote bidding, while British dealers are getting creative in the Big Apple

Christie's to offer paid internships to students with disabilities

Auction house has partnered with disability charity Leonard Cheshire's Change 100 programme to give work placements in-house and fund others at Tate and National Galleries of Scotland

Christie’s supports charity delivering art history lessons for students at UK state schools

Art History Link-Up chief says subject is a rare offer at state schools because of cuts and teacher shortages

Phillips names Stephen Brooks, a former Christie's financial officer, as new chief executive

The current chief, Edward Dolman, will shift in September to a new role as executive chairman of Phillips’ holding company

Sotheby’s launches first auction dedicated to women artists—but why do we still need a segregated sale in 2021?

Online sale will span the 17th to the 21st centuries featuring artists including Dorothea Tanning, Hannah Höch and Barbara Hepworth

Sotheby's to sell Robert Colescott's take on George Washington crossing the Delaware River

The painting's low estimate of $9m is ten times the artist's record at auction

NFTnews

Sotheby’s gets in on NFT fever with a collaboration with digital artist Pak

Auction house's head of sale Max Moore has already personally bought a work by the artist

Art Basel/UBS report: global art market shrinks by almost a quarter to $50.1bn during Covid-19 crisis

Online sales, a growing pool of billionaires and reduced overheads all helped sustain the trade when physical art fairs and auctions all but disappeared

Newly attributed Bernini drawing up for auction in France

Actéon auctioneers expect the 17th-century study of a male nude, authenticated by Ann Sutherland Harris and Louis de Bayser, to sell for €30,000 to €50,000

Christie’s to accept cryptocurrency for first time

The buyer of Beeple's NFT work will be able to pay with ETH later this month

Art marketanalysis

Neoliberalism is distorting how we see art—is there no alternative?

While today’s art world has been shaped by the prism of price, our current economic model may not be inevitable

Can Paris snatch the art market crown from London?

The French capital seems resurgent, but other elements may intervene

Art marketanalysis

Lockdown home decorators boost New York's Americana week auctions

Chippendale-style furniture, elephant tureens and a broadside edition of the Declaration of Independence were in demand at the sales series last week

Art marketanalysis

Blue-chip artists move over, here come the red chips

Art as a blue-chip investment has had its day, as buyers chase the latest "red-chip" names