Sotheby’s, Christie’s Contemporary-Art Sales Total Drops

Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Sotheby’s, Christie’s Contemporary-Art Sales Total Drops 75% By Scott Reyburn

Source: Bloomberg

Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Annual sales of contemporary art slumped 75 percent at the two largest auction houses’ evening sales in 2009 after they abandoned price guarantees to sellers.

Sotheby’s and Christie’s International made a combined total of $482.3 million with fees from their five regular “Part I” sales of high-value art in New York and London this year, according to figures compiled by Bloomberg News. In 2008, the same group of flagship auctions made $1.97 billion. That compares with a record $2.4 billion in 2007, and $1.1 billion in 2006.

Worldwide auction sales of contemporary art grew more than eightfold between 2003 and 2007, according to France-based database Artprice. Demand contracted in the fourth quarter of 2008, after the September collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., with Sotheby’s and Christie’s losing at least $50 million and $40 million respectively as artworks failed to achieve prices guaranteed to sellers. Phillips de Pury & Co. also stopped providing guarantees before its fall series of sales.

Private sales of contemporary art raised more than auctions at Christie’s in the first half of 2009, said the London-based auction house. Sotheby’s would not comment on private sales.