Auctions

Auctionsanalysis

The highs and lows of New York ‘gigaweek’

Hockney made the headlines, but other artists made waves—or flopped—at November’s auctions

Anna Brady and Margaret Carrigan. with additional reporting by Gabriella Angeleti and Nancy Kenney
Art marketcomment

Why the Christie's and Sotheby's duopoly is impregnable

The auction houses sell more than 80% of works priced over $1m at auction—can an underdog ever wrestle market share away from them?

Auction house pulls seven objects from American Indian sale amid protests

Native American official calls planned auction of the items “unconscionable”

Ben Uri museum advisory board resigns en masse over Sotheby’s sale of works from the collection

Nicholas Serota and Norman Rosenthal say that selling off the works is a “grave mistake”

Phillips and Bonhams see strong sales on smaller lots

The auction houses' bottom lines suffered from unsold lots, continuing a trend of top-lot discernment during New York’s fall sales

Podcastspodcast

David Hockney: exclusive interview with the world's most expensive living artist

We talk to David Hockney about Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), which broke an auction record this week, selling at Christie's New York for $90.3m with fees. Produced in association with Bonhams, auctioneers since 1793.

Nobel Prize-winning doctor’s painting of the lab where he discovered insulin goes on sale in Toronto

Dr Frederick Banting wanted to take up art full-time, but he was killed in a plane crash during the Second World War

African American artists sweep Sotheby’s contemporary evening sale in New York

With only two lots unsold, the auction house nets $362.6m in evening of avid bidding

Art marketpreview

How high will Hockney go and can his soaring market last?

A double pool portrait, estimated at $80m and offered at Christie’s with no reserve, could set a record for the most expensive work by a living artist

Record $91.9m sale of Edward Hopper’s Chop Suey buoys confidence at Christie’s American art sale

At $317.8m, the Ebsworth evening sale becomes one of the top five most valuable collections ever sold at auction

Top lots go unsold at New York's Impressionist and Modern sales, proving a discerning but 'not doomsday' market

Monet carries Christie's evening sale while a Magritte shines at Sotheby's, marking an auction record for the Surrealist painter

Guarantees: the next big art market scandal?

Third-party auction deals have made some people very rich—but they may be bad for the market in the long run

Anna Brady. , with additional reporting by Anny Shaw
Art marketcomment

Common mistakes of rookie auction guarantors

Guarantees can be lucrative, but in the face of savvy competition, novices can get burnt when backing works as a third-party

Holy grail of folk ceramics made by 19th-century snake handler breaks auction record

The “snake jug” shattered the previous record for Anna Pottery, a niche favourite of Americana collectors

Auctionscomment

Contemporary art’s value may be on the rise, but it comes at a greater cost

Chicago’s aborted effort to sell Kerry James Marshall’s public work teaches us something about the transactional nature of today’s culture

Lawnews

US court orders collector to repay Sotheby’s $1.2m for Parmigianino fake

The judgement comes after two experts found the painting was made with modern synthetic pigments

Sotheby’s withdraws painting that Pierre Bergé ‘maintained was by Manet’

The work was one of 18 to have been placed under a court order following a financial dispute unrelated to the auction

Villa Grisebach to sell founder’s collection to raise funds for new Museum of Exile

Two-day auction will include works by Picasso, Matisse, Egon Schiele, collected by Bernd Schultz over six decades

Art marketanalysis

Will the market for AI art take off?

With no auction precedent and little primary market data, Christie's sale of a work made by an algorithm tests demand

Christie's to offer major works from the Klapper collection that could fetch more than $50m

The 20-lot sale spans the auction house's New York and London locations and includes works ranging from Old Master paintings to a Monet

Van Gogh's garden painting set to make $40m auction record for Paris period

Now being sold by a London-based collector at Christie's New York, the work will probably go to Japan or China

a blog by Martin Bailey

Banksy renames shredded painting Love Is In the Bin as work sells to winning bidder after a week of negotiation

Girl With Balloon canvas ‘self-destructed’ live at Sotheby’s last week in one of the most publicised stunts in auction history

Abraaj Group liquidators to sell 200 works from art collection at Bonhams

Middle Eastern and South Asian works owned by embattled Dubai-based private equity firm carry much lower estimates than prices paid a decade ago

Ye made this work famous—and you can buy it

Sotheby’s New York to sell Sleep which inspired the rapper's video fro Famous

Plucky Brits: Banksy self-destructs and Jenny Saville makes £9.5m record for a living female artist

Just when we thought Frieze week was all over, twists and turns provide high drama at Sotheby’s contemporary evening sale on Friday night

Contemporary art market cools as confidence drops

Brexit and Trump's trade war with China are affecting the mood of buyers

Sotheby’s 'Banksy-ed' as painting 'self-destructs' live at auction

Girl with a Balloon (2006) had just hammered at £860,000

British artists dominate Christie's patchy £71.1m sale, as over-priced Koons and Richter fail to sell

Francis Bacon's lighter depiction of George Dyer leads auction at £17.5m, with strong prices for Hurvin Anderson, Bridget Riley and Albert Oehlen