Auctions

Keep the Monet flowing: trim but efficient Sotheby's sale starts London's pre-Brexit Impressionist and Modern art week

£63m auction total is half that of last year, but bidding from Asia and Russia helps make new record for Oskar Schlemmer and a Venetian view by Monet

SFMoMA to sell a Rothko estimated at $35m to $50m

Proceeds would go toward acquisitions that “address art historical gaps’’

Nuremberg prosecutor seizes 63 Hitler works from auction house on forgery suspicions

Twenty-six of the seized works were to be auctioned at Auktionshaus Weidler tomorrow

The Fine Art Society closes Mayfair gallery after 142 years with 'emotional' sale at Sotheby’s

Sculpture of Peter Pan and painting by Gluck were among the stars of five-hour long auction

Drawings prove the main draw for collectors at New York’s Master Week sales

Sotheby’s sees strong sales for works on paper by Rubens and Carracci while interest in masterworks by female artists slowly rises

Hitler watercolours seized as suspected fakes

Three landscapes signed A. Hitler were offered for sale at Berlin’s Auktionshaus Kloss

Dutch Royal family’s decision to auction $2.5m Rubens drawing at Sotheby's sparks criticism

Calls are growing to give Dutch museums first refusal but Dutch prime minister says it is a ‘private matter’

Life lessons: what the art market learned from 2018

Georgina Adam speaks with three leading art world figures on the key events of last year and what 2019 may hold

A monumental work by Marie Antoinette’s portraitist will headline Sotheby’s Female Triumphant sale

Major works by 14 women artists are expected to dominate Sotheby’s Masters Week offerings and bring more 'diverse' collectors

2018 in the market: the price is right for pale males

David Hockney was latest white male artist to set a record this year

Market stunts predict the future… and evoke the past

The Leonardo and Banksy auction spectacles suggested a future in which marketing triumphs. But was it ever thus?

Van Gogh's portrait of a prostitute coming up for sale

Christie’s, more discreetly, entitles it “Portrait de femme”

a blog by Martin Bailey

Glenn Gould’s Bach hits the auction block

The late pianist’s 1981 annotated score of Bach’s Goldberg Variations is the first of his manuscripts to come to market

How a Roman sarcophagus—going on sale this week—was emptied for a pug

Skeleton of young man was evicted to make way for the body of the first Duke of Buckingham and Chandos's pet dog

Record set in Canada for Nobel Prize-winning doctor and artist Frederick Banting

A painting of the University of Toronto lab where he co-discovered insulin goes for ten times its high estimate in Toronto

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