Auction houses

After two years of tremendous growth, France's art auction market is in decline

Overall auction results are strong—largely thanks to rise of second hand car purchases—but sales of fine art and antiques have fallen significantly from last year

Phillips’s evening sale of 20th-century and contemporary art in London comes up short, despite healthy mid-level bidding

The 27-lot sale brought in £10.9m without fees after three works were pulled and another three failed to sell

Christie's Elton John evening sale proves Wednesday night is alright for buying

The auction nearly matched its $6.4m high estimate before fees, as art brought the money while luxury and memorabilia drove the bidding

Merger of Freeman’s and Hindman auction houses targets upper-middle market growth

Firm formed by auction house pairing announces a New York saleroom and expansion plans abroad

Painting made by The Beatles in a Tokyo hotel sells for $1.7m at auction

The Fab Four all painted a corner each of the psychedelic composition

Sotheby's weathers 'challenging market' with $7.9bn of sales in 2023

Luxury goods and Millennials are helping buoy the bottom line, though fine art remains at the core of the business

A Dutch museum wants to buy a Van Gogh painting from an English collector

The portrait of Gordina, whom Vincent was accused of getting pregnant, is worth around £5m

Phillips chief executive Stephen Brooks steps down after two years

Brooks, who joined the company in 2021, has left for personal reasons

Lawyers for Rybolovlev and Sotheby's spar on first day of New York fraud trial

At issue is whether the auction house "aided and abetted" Yves Bouvier in inflating prices in four private sales

Art marketanalysis

Fairs, auction houses and AI: five predictions for the art market in 2024

Will Patrick Drahi sell a stake in Sotheby’s? Will Frieze acquire more regional fairs? Watch this space…

The Gray Market: Our art market soothsayer looks back on his 2023 predictions

How did his forecasts weather the roughest turbulence the trade has experienced in years? Read on to find out

Christie's projects 26.1% decline in sales in 'paradoxical' 2023

An exceptional 2022 buoyed by the $1.6bn collection of Paul Allen has proved a tough act to follow—but private sales are on the rise

$4 thrift-store vase sells for $107,100 at auction

It turns out the glass vessel is a rare example of a 1940s Venini piece designed by the architect Carlo Scarpa

Cold feet? Why fewer investors are guaranteeing art at auction

According to a recent report, guarantees are down—what's happened?

Sotheby’s $306m The Now and Contemporary sales wrap up a mediocre New York auction season

Both sales persevered through a lukewarm atmosphere to break into the lower reaches of their estimate ranges

Christie’s 20th century evening sale in New York defies fears of a jittery market

Swan song of veteran auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen made $640.8m—the house's highest total for a non-single-owner sale in six years

Late American broadcaster Barbara Walters’s collection nets $5m at Bonhams

All of the proceeds from Walters’s art collection—along with her jewellery and home décor—will go toward charitable causes, according to her estate

Long-unseen Basquiat self-portrait could reach $60m at Sotheby’s New York

"Self Portrait as a Heel (Part Two)" (1982) hasn’t been displayed in public since its last appearance at auction, in 1999

Christie’s brokers restitution settlement with heirs of art dealer and Swiss museum to offer $35m Cézanne at auction next month

Fruits et pot de gingembre, one of three Cézanne paintings included in the sale, was found to have been sold under duress after the Nazis took power in Germany

Christie’s longtime global president Jussi Pylkkänen is stepping down

After nearly 40 years at the auction house, Pylkkänen will work as an independent art adviser

Grayson Perry and Cornelia Parker donate works to Freedom from Torture charity auctions

Ai Weiwei’s taxi window crank sculptures will also go on the block at the Sotheby's live sale

Lines redrawn: how artists and auction houses are shaking things up with new ways of working together

Phillips’s recent private selling exhibition of Damien Hirst works marked 15 years of artists collaborating with auction houses, with or without gallery cooperation

Jitters, few jolts at Phillips's 20th century & contemporary evening sale in London

Results offered at least modest reassurance at the house’s premier Frieze Week auction

Balthus painting deaccessioned by the Art Institute of Chicago could bring as much as $18m at auction

"La Patience" (1948), which was one of two Balthus paintings in the museum’s collection, will go up for auction at Sotheby’s New York in November

Phillips aims for $70m haul with New York sale of works from the Triton Collection Foundation

A double-sided Fernand Léger estimated between $15m to $20m leads the offering, amassed by a Dutch shipping and oil magnate and his wife

Collection of late California patron Chara Schreyer could net more than $70m at Sotheby’s in New York

In sales spanning this year and next, hundreds of works that once belonged to the SFMoMA trustee will be offered, including a box in a suitcase by Duchamp

Sotheby’s lands $400m Emily Fisher Landau collection for November sales

The auctions will include a 1932 Picasso painting with a $120m estimate