art auctions Archives – Daily Art Fixx

If you’ve got four minutes to spare, check out this great video—part one (Auctions) of a four-part series on Artsy.net. How did the art auction business become a multi-billion-dollar industry? This video is a quick review of the complex history of auctions, with specific attention to the last 20 years. It features record-breaking sales, like Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting Untitled (1982), selling at $51 million, and anomalies such as Ai Weiwei’s Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds) (2010), which pop up at auction in countless different quantities, making the connection between the auction price and the market value of art.

The series is produced in collaboration with UBS and directed by Oscar Boyson.

Director: Oscar Boyson
Editor: Nate DeYoung
Producer: Sean Barth
Produced By: Neighborhood Watch Films
Assistant Editor: Erin DeWitt
Sound: Colin Alexander
Music: Jay Wadley of Found Objects Music Production
Colour: Irving Harvey

1. Raphael’s (1483-1520) chalk drawing “Head of a Muse” sold for 29.2 million pounds ($47.6 million) at Christie’s London on Dec. 8, setting an auction record for a work of art on paper. It was bought by the U.S.-based collector Leon Black, chief executive of Apollo Global Management LLC and a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

2. Henri Matisse’s (1869-1954) 1911 still life of cowslips, “Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose” from the collection of late couturier Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge sold for 35.9 million euros ($45.6 million), an artist record, at a Christie’s Paris auction on Feb. 23. The buyer was New York- based dealer Franck Giraud.

3. Andy Warhol’s 1962 silkscreen painting of 200 one-dollar bills sold for $43.8 million at Sotheby’s New York on Nov. 11. It was the second highest auction price for a work by the pop artist.

4. Constantin Brancusi’s (1876-1957) wooden sculpture “Madame L.R.” (Portrait de Mme L.R. 1914-17), sold for 29.2 million euros ($37.1 million) at Christie’s Feb. 23 auction in Paris from the collection of Saint Laurent and Berge.

5. Rembrandt’s 1658 “Portrait of a Man with Arms Akimbo” sold for 20.2 million pounds ($32.9 million) to Las Vegas casino developer Steve Wynn. The painting was sold by Johnson & Johnson heiress Barbara Piasecka Johnson at Christie’s London on Dec. 8.

6. An Art Deco armchair with lacquered wood arms shaped as dragons, by designer Eileen Gray (1878-1976), sold for 21.9 million euros ($28.1 million), more than 10 times its low estimate at Christie’s Paris. The work from the collection of Saint Laurent and Berge established an auction record for 20th-century design.

7. Piet Mondrian’s 1922 abstract “Composition avec bleu, rouge, jaune et noir” sold for 21.6 million euros ($27.4 million) at Christie’s Paris sale from the collection of Saint Laurent and Berge.

8. A Ming-dynasty scroll “Eighteen Arhats” by Wu Bin (1573-1620) sold for 170 million yuan ($25 million) at Poly International Auction Co. in Beijing in November. Shanghai-based collector and stock-investor Liu Yiqian bought the work.

9. Alberto Giacometti’s (1901-1966) figure of a falling man, “L’Homme Qui Chavire,” sold by Conde Nast chairman S. I. Newhouse Jr., sold for $19.4 million at Sotheby’s New York on Nov. 4.

10. Edgar Degas’s (1834-1917) bronze sculpture, “Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans” (1922) sold for 13.3 million pounds ($19.2 million) at Sotheby’s London on Feb. 3.

Source: Business Week

The Art Market: Art Auctions

Top Ten Art Sales of 2009