Christie’s is re-vamping its spring New York sales calendar and introducing a new centrepiece auction. Six sales of mostly pre-Modern art, including the new “Revolution” sale, which includes work made from the 18th to 20th centuries, have been consolidated into the new “Classic Art Week,” which will take place from 12-14 April 2016. Five other sales (antiquities; the two-part Old Master paintings auction; sculpture and the “Exceptional” sale of decorative arts) have been moved into the week from December and January as part of an overall push to cross-pollinate across departments.
Jussi Pylkkänen, the auction house’s global president, says the streamlined calendar allows Christie’s staff to collaborate and present work to collectors interested in various art historical periods. “Most of our collectors are buying in five or six different fields,” he says, which is a radical departure from previous years. “Ten years ago, they may have been buying in one or two fields.” The week “makes it as easy as possible for collectors to see the very best in every field,” he says.
The auctions revolve around the “Revolution” sale, which focuses on art made in periods of political, social or artistic upheaval. The list of works on offer has yet to be finalised, but Pylkkänen says pieces by Eugene Delacroix, Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres may be included. “People love a narrative,” he says and the sale offers “a more intellectual look at great artists working at particular times of political unrest or moments of scientific discovery.”
Curated sales have become a key strategy at Christie’s. “The Artist’s Muse,” a sale scheduled for 9 November in New York, spans the 20th century and is led by Amedeo Modigliani’s painting Nu Couché (Reclining Nude) from 1917, which is expected to fetch as much as $100m. In May, another curated sale, “Looking Forward to the Past,” made more than $705m and set 10 auction records.
“You’ll hear of other curated sales in other weeks across 2016,” Pylkkänen says. “It’s a way of looking at the market in another way.”
