PARIS, Sept. 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On 29 June 2020, the charismatic Sotheby's
auctioneer, Oliver Barker,
brilliantly orchestrated – alone in front of an audience of screens
– the sale of Francis Bacon's
triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus (1981) for
$84.55 million. This result was
particularly reassuring for the Art Market… and was not without
risk. In October 2017, Christie's had
failed to sell Bacon's Study of Red
Pope 1962. 2nd Version (1971) in London… a painting that
was hoped to set an all-time European art auction record at over
$90 million.
Following the cancellation of all the major fairs and spring
sales, the high-end art market is clearly hungry. Apart from a
couple of top-quality pieces offered in London auction rooms at the end of January
(Tiepollo, Mantegna) and at the beginning of February (Hockney,
Magritte, de Lempicka), the major collectors have had very little
to chew on this year.
"There's nothing more frustrating than being confined without
being able to buy anything..." observes (somewhat ironically)
thierry Ehrmann, President and Founder of ArtMarket.com and its
Artprice department… especially when you consider that money in
the bank is so 'expensive' these days ... Sure... this is a problem
that only the wealthy face... but it's one the auction houses have
understood. This summer, some of them opened shop in the Hamptons
where a lot New York collectors
had taken refuge. Phillips presented a selection of works there
that will soon be auctioned. Despite posting a heavy turnover
contraction – down almost half for the first 8 months of 2020 –
Phillips is back in 4th place in our global ranking and, above all,
it is clearly preparing for the future".
Photo -
https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1279037/Artmarket.jpg
Collective work - Portraits of Richard Prince, Francis
Bacon & Christo
© thierry Ehrmann 2020. Courtesy Contemporary Art Museum
L'Organe / La Demeure du Chaos / Abode of Chaos
[https://imgpublic.artprice.com/img/wp/sites/11/2020/09/Portraits-de-Richard-Prince-Francis-Bacon-Christo.jpg]
Phillips has also announced the creation of a brand new
partnership with the leading Chinese art auctioneer, Poly Auction,
whose sales turnover reached $617
million in 2019. But Poly Auction had a very difficult start
to 2020, taking just $3.7 million in
the first half (-99%), a situation it clearly hopes to reverse as
quickly as possible via this alliance with the British auctioneer
in Hong Kong, aimed at encouraging
potential sellers to sell. "[This collaboration] provides
a unique opportunity for consignees to leverage the combined
customer base and marketing strength of two of the world's largest
auction houses" (1) says Jonathan
Crockett, President of Phillips Asia.
Top 10 Fine Art Auction Houses (1
January 2020 - 31 August
2020)
© artprice.com
1. Sotheby's - $1.49 billion
(-31%)
2. Christie's - $1.03 billion
(-54%)
3 . China Guardian - $171 million (-31%)
4. Phillips - $164 million (-49%)
5. Xiling Yinshe - $76.3 million (+
18%)
6. Bonhams - $54.5 million (-
32%)
7. Artcurial - $36.5 million
(-30%)
8. Ketterer Kunst - $31.8 million (+ 5%)
9. Dorotheum - $27.1 million
(-24%)
10. Mainichi - $22 million (-35%)
At the opposite end of the scale, some operators have apparently
benefited from the health crisis (Xiling Yinshe and Ketterer Kunst). The German auctioneer Ketterer
has posted 5% growth versus the same year-earlier period. With long
experience in online sales, it managed to maintain interest and
trading throughout the lockdown period, hosting one or two
"Online-Only" sessions every month between January and June. In
July 2020, it conducted four physical
sales in Munich, taking a total of
$29.5 million. In all, it was
Ketterer's best first-half period in its business history.
"We owe this success not least to our 65 years of
experience," says Robert
Ketterer, auctioneer and owner of Ketterer Kunst. "We can
interpret the signs and immediately react to even the slightest
market changes with great flexibility, despite our very stable
structures. As a digitalization pioneer we have been successfully
holding Online Only Auctions since 2007. In our 500th auction an
online bid in the millions was submitted for the first time
ever."
Robert Ketterer continues: "Ketterer Kunst has become established as the
international specialist for art from the German language region.
We know exactly what potential buyers are looking for and always
identify the perfect auction setting for every single artwork. This
is also reflected by the continuous development of our auction
catalogs and the Online Only Auctions, as we do not just adapt
structure and content to latest market requirements, we also
understand to stir desires with our unique range of quality
objects."
In this delicate period of accelerated transition to digital
business against the backdrop of the health crisis, online sales
are not yet the perfect solution for all segments of the art
market. They are not automatically appropriate for all price
ranges, all mediums and all artists. A more flexible bricks
& clicks approach combining the various sales channels
(physical, online, private) seems to be the best strategy in the
medium term. And this new approach to value creation
seems to rely increasingly on an idea we have been promoting for
many years: selecting the right work from the right artist at
the right time, in the right catalogue, and, via the most
appropriate sales channel.
Copyright 1987-2020 thierry Ehrmann
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Artmarket is a global player in the Art Market with, among other
structures, its Artprice department, world leader in the
accumulation, management and exploitation of historical and current
art market information in databanks containing over 30 million
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Market image bank in the world: no less than 180 million digital
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Artmarket with its Artprice department accumulates data on a
permanent basis from 6300 Auction Houses and produces key Art
Market information for the main press and media agencies (7,200
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to ads posted by other members, a network that today represents the
leading Global Standardized Marketplace® to buy and sell artworks
at a fixed or bid price (auctions regulated by paragraphs 2 and 3
of Article L 321.3 of France's
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Artmarket with its Artprice department, has been awarded the
State label "Innovative Company" by the Public Investment Bank
(BPI) (for the second time in November
2018 for a new period of 3 years) which is supporting the
company in its project to consolidate its position as a global
player in the market art.
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in February 2020 :
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