Auction houses

French actor Alain Delon’s art collection heads to auction

"The Leopard" star’s collection could bring in as much as €5m at Bonhams in Paris

Art marketanalysis

Wealthy American art collectors capitalise on tax-efficient gift scheme

Donor Advised Funds allow individuals to claim tax relief while they are still alive through making gifts of art and other assets—without obligation to pay out money to charity straight away

Sotheby's veteran Kevin Ching joins Christie's as chairman of Asia

Ching will be based in Hong Kong and starts the new role on Wednesday

Louise Bourgeois's record-breaking $32.8m Spider crawls to top of Sotheby's contemporary art sale

A double-header night of The Now and contemporary art auctions set ten new artist records, boosting confidence after a lacklustre Christie's sale of the Gerald Fineberg collection

Phillips scores $69.5m in New York evening sale, led by Banksy’s take on Basquiat

A painting by Noah Davis reached more than nine times its low estimate after a 12-minute bidding war

Art marketanalysis

Christie’s pulls off a safe 21st-century evening sale in New York, powered largely by a $58m Basquiat

While a handful of lots—including new records for Diane Arbus and Simone Leigh—created a buzz in saleroom, bids felt reined in amid economic uncertainty

Battle of the Basquiats: Christie’s and Sotheby’s both have big, eight-figure paintings lined up for marquee spring sales

'El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile)' and 'Now’s the Time' are estimated to sell for $45m at Christie’s and $30m at Sotheby’s, respectively

Artcurial expands into Switzerland with a stake in auction house Beurret Bailly Widmer

The Swiss company will now be called Artcurial Beurret Bailly Widmer, with the three Swiss founders remaining as partners

Art marketcomment

'Don't fear recession—it could create the art market’s next revolution'

While auction houses and dealers are increasingly worried of a downturn, a look back to the 1970s and 1980s suggests that their anxieties might be unfounded

Art marketcomment

Backroom deals for wet paintings: why contemporary art is driving private sales for auction houses

Shortening art market cycles and the politics around "flipping" artworks are leading collectors to conduct business away from public scrutiny

Bonhams closes gender pay gap by 39%, but Sotheby’s and Christie’s lag behind

UK’s public institutions continue to provide a greater degree of equity—though this is not even across all pay brackets

Art marketanalysis

Global art market 'beginning to cool’, according to latest Art Basel/UBS report

Total sales grew just 3% in 2022, while China's zero-Covid policies saw UK overtake it as second-biggest market

After fallout, Sotheby’s seeks to fix ‘glitch’ in its NFT sale by including more women

Auction house faced online backlash over male-dominated digital art sale

Renoir portrait once owned by art dealer Ambroise Vollard could fetch €650,000 at Paris auction

Painting was sold by Vollard in 1930 and has never been publicly exhibited before

Phillips unveils new Asia headquarters in Hong Kong, promising investment in local scene after 'difficult' few years

The opening of the 52,000 sq ft Kowloon space kicked off the city's first international art week since Covid restrictions lifted

Works worth more than $20m accounted for nearly half of auction sales in 2022, according to new Sotheby's report

Report also highlights how Asian, Millennial and Gen X buyers are changing the demographic of the market

'Museum-quality' works by Bill Woodrow pulled from Saatchi & Saatchi collection sale after last-minute intervention

Eight sculptures were being offered by auction house Roseberys at prices so low they would have been "destructive to his career", according to the artist Richard Deacon

How one year of Russian sanctions have shaped the art market

Businesses urged to tighten approach to client background checks as US subpoenas auction houses for sales records

Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi heads to court in case against Sotheby's

New York judge rules the auction house must face trial as part of Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev’s art fraud lawsuit

Phillips reveals launch programme of Asia headquarters in Hong Kong

Works by Yayoi Kusama, Matthew Wong and Loie Hollowell will headline a preview exhibition for its inaugural auctions in March

A 200-year-old family collection of largely unseen Théodore Géricault paintings heads to auction

The sale at Sotheby’s Paris will include seven works by the artist with Portrait of Zoé Elmore carrying the highest estimate of €1.2m

US authorities subpoena auction houses in effort to crack down on violations of Russian sanctions

Prosecutors in New York are seeking auction house sales information going back years in order to track potentially illicit transactions by sanctioned Russian collectors

Bonhams owner floats sale of auction house at $1bn

Epiris private equity group, which owns the auction house, has reportedly approached JP Morgan Chase & Co to advise on the deal

Police investigation prompts French auction house to postpone sale of Chandigarh furniture

Reports of thefts of heritage furniture items from buildings across the Indian city have risen over the past ten years

French court orders Christie's to restitute a Nazi-looted painting sold in London

As the panel was looted in Paris, the magistrates claimed jurisdiction of the French courts over the High Court in London