(New York) Picasso, Monet, Cézanne, Basquiat, Rothko and… Ferrari: auction sales of works of art in New York exceeded two billion dollars in one week, according to a report from the major houses in the sector which are delighted with a market in great shape despite the international crises.
The behemoths Sotheby’s and Christie’s, and Tom Thumb Phillips, concluded their fall sales season on Friday, which began on November 7. According to a total amount calculated by AFP, this represented between them 2.1 billion dollars thanks to the masterpieces of modern and contemporary art sold during ultra-chic New York evenings crowded with collectors and extremely wealthy, anonymous buyers, in sales rooms and on the telephone.
Phillips’ president for the Americas, Jean-Paul Engelen, reported in a statement to AFP on Friday the “second highest total result in Phillips history” with $155 million in sales, “up by 11% compared to November 2022.”
The businessman sees it as a “sign of confidence in a healthy global market”.
Phillips sold a monumental contemporary work by the German Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (636) from 1987, for $34.8 million and July 14 (1912-13) by the cubist Fernand Léger for $17.6 million.
It was Sotheby’s, owned by Franco-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, which took the lion’s share with $1.1 billion in sales.
Highlights of his evenings: Woman with a Watch (1932) by Pablo Picasso sold for $139 million, the second price ever reached for the Spanish master who died 50 years ago, a monumental Self-Portrait as a Heel (Part II) ) by the American Jean-Michel Basquiat for 42 million, Poplars on the banks of the Epte, overcast weather by Paul Cézanne (1891) for 30.7 million and the highly prized American painter Mark Rothko for an Untitled (1968) purchased by an anonymous in the room $23.8 million.
Sotheby’s especially made a splash with the “Holy Grail of the pantheon of sports cars”, a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, which sold for $51.7 million, the second most expensive car ever sold at auction.
Competitor Christie’s, from French billionaire François Pinault’s Artémis holding company, boasted a total of $864 million, a sign according to its president for the Americas, Bonnie Brennan, of a “strong market response.”
Highlights of its sales: Le bassin aux nymphéas (1917-1919) by Claude Monet for $74 million and three paintings by Paul Cézanne – including Fruits and a Ginger Pot for nearly $39 million – for the benefit of the Langmatt Museum in Baden , in Switzerland, causing a small controversy in this country over a sale considered speculative.
In the context of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and global inflation, the art market, driven by China and Asia, shows “no sign” of slowing down with “demand stronger than ever” Kelsey Reed Leonard, head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s, assured AFP at the launch of the season.
An expert in the sector preferring to remain anonymous even considers it “normal” that in the midst of geopolitical crises and in inflationary periods, “financial speculators” invest in art and luxury.
By 2022, auction houses had broken all ceilings with global auction and private sales totaling more than $16 billion.
