Auctions

Sotheby's will sell Christo's preparatory works for Arc de Triomphe wrap

Proceeds from exhibition will go towards funding the monumental Paris project

'An opportunity for bargain hunters' or a waste of time? Italy relaxes stringent export laws for Old Masters and antiques worth less than €13,500

Lower-value older works and those by artists who died less than 50 years ago no longer need an export licence to leave the country—but the process can still be slow

England may be through to the Euro finals, but Sotheby's Old Master paintings sale scores an own goal

The auction house's £17.2m offering in London tonight was only 57% sold, overshadowed by the football match

Three women, two cities, and a sea of Asian bidders—Christie's London to Paris sale delivers 'strongest summer season' since 2017

All but one of the four auctioneers conducting the £153.6m marathon 20th- and 21st-century evening sale were women

Lucian Freud's portrait of David Hockney fetches £14.9m in strong hybrid sales at Sotheby’s in London

Asian bidders and British art boosted figures to make auction house's highest summer total since 2018

Forgotten Fragonard painting, deemed 'worthless' by its owners, fetches £6.6m at auction

Philosopher Reading is now the third most expensive work by the Rococo artist to sell at auction

Canadanews

Works by women artists reach new heights in Canadian auction

Two canvases by Carr blew past their estimate to become among the highest auction prices paid for her work, while a painting by 92-year-old Rita Letendre set a record for the artist

Blast off! Painting by David Bowie sells for more than $87,000 in online auction

The painting was found in an Ontario thrift shop and purchased for just five Canadian dollars

Records set for Cinga Samson, Avery Singer, Vija Celmins, Titus Kaphar and Julie Curtiss at Phillips's $118.2m evening sale

Auction house chose to hold its 20th century and contemporary art evening sale in New York during what is traditionally the London season due to "detonated" calendar

Chinese gold sculpture breaks German auction record at €14m—almost triple the previous high

A Chinese collector bought the 15th century gold and bronze Ming-dynasty sculpture of the god Vajrabhairava earlier today

Booksnews

Bronte childhood portraits at stake as UK museums and libraries race to save literary treasures

Sotheby’s has postponed auction of extraordinary Honresfield Library as a consortium seeks £15 million to buy it

Sotheby's launches sales in Germany—against stiff competition from local auction houses

The opulent Palais Oppenheim in Cologne will host exhibitions and sales from September. Sotheby's says move is due to growing client base in country, not Brexit

'Two cool older boys': Lucian Freud's portrait of David Hockney expected to sell for up to £12m

The work, which took four months to paint in 2002, will be auctioned at Sotheby's this month

Sotheby's to offer Tim Berners-Lee's original code for world wide web as (you guessed it) an NFT

Berners-Lee says NFTs are the "ideal way to package the origins behind the web"

Shoe designer's $18.9m 'Double Eagle' sets new world record for a coin at auction

The unique coin from 1933, part of a collection amassed by luxury shoe designer, Stuart Weitzman, sold at Sotheby's in New York yesterday

Bonhams consignor withdraws looted Nepalese sculptures from auction

The five figures of Hindu gods once adorned a gilded temple gateway in a Unesco world heritage site

Julie Mehretu donates major painting to Art for Justice Fund

The auction is estimated to raise $3m to $4m to support efforts to end mass incarceration

Sotheby's American Art auction saw some prices soar, while Christie's remained grounded

A museum sells art to balance its budget, a gorgeous Sargent goes unwanted, and a painting of a giraffe reaches high.

Newark Museum of Art’s much-disputed sale of Thomas Cole painting nets $988,000

Auction at Sotheby’s yields promising yet mixed results for museum’s drive to fund collections care

Christie's rounds off New York's auction week with strong $481m 20th century sale—and half of it was pre-sold through guarantees

The sale was led by a classic 1932 Picasso of Marie-Thérèse at $103.4m and set new records for Alice Neel, Grace Hartigan, Barbara Hepworth and Alighiero Boetti

Podcastspodcast

New York auctions: has the art market roared back to life?

Plus, Heather Phillipson at Tate Britain and Ackroyd and Harvey on Joseph Beuys

Sponsored byChristie's

Can Instagram bring the big auction houses into the digital age?

Christie's and Sotheby's are starting to embrace what the social media platform has to offer

Monet's $70m water lilies float to the top of Sotheby's three-auction marathon

The evening of sales in New York totalled $439.6m, with Basquiat's Versus Medici topping the contemporary art offering at $50.8m and a new record for Leonor Fini

Hands up who's bidding for classic post-war art? Picky response to Anne Marion's all-American collection reflects market's shifting tastes

Sotheby's auction of the Texan rancher's collection totalled $157.2m and set new records for Kenneth Noland, Larry Rivers and Richard Diebenkorn

Spotty performance for unseen Yayoi Kusama paintings at Bonhams New York—but works on paper soar off the block

Pieces came from the collection of late New York heart surgeon who befriended the artist in the 1960s

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

A $93.1m Basquiat and reams of records for hot young names kicks off New York auction week at Christie's

The $210.4m sale included new highs for contemporary artists like Mickalene Thomas, Jordan Casteel and Lynette Yiadom Boakye, while some established names fell flat