A beginner's guide to art auctions: Auctions are the art world's blood sport, with wealthy collectors and art speculators convening in tony salesrooms to compete with one another for the finest works coming to market—providing delight for the rows of onlookers who attend the events to watch the action.
+ Andrew M. Goldstein
How does an art auction work? Art auctions attract global attention with their glittery A-list collectors, bidding wars, and unexpected events such as artworks shredding right in front of bidders’ eyes. But behind the glamour and drama sits a serious business, centuries of history, and practices that consistently set the tone for the art market at large. Here’s your guide to everything that happens before the inevitable ‘Sold!’
+ Singulart Magazine
Auction houses: House pride: The art world is changing faster than Sotheby’s and Christie’s are adapting their business model.
+ Economist
Sold to the highest bidder: Why Sotheby’s is going private: Going once, going twice … sold for $3.7 billion dollars. As a legendary auction house, Sotheby’s prepares to go private, a slew of new opportunities beckon. They include the financial flexibility and the necessary confidentiality to go after bigger business deals; tapping into expanding global markets and the use of advanced technology that could help Sotheby’s fetch the best prices by matching collections with art lovers’ preferences.
+ Knowledge @ Wharton
Sotheby’s and Christie’s look to luxury as a coronavirus antidote: The world’s two biggest auction houses are selling more watches, jewelry, and handbags, but art’s still where the money is.
+ Scott Reyburn
Meet Aurel Bacs, the man who sparked the vintage watch boom: Why are classic timepieces suddenly more sought-after, more Instagrammed, and more valuable than ever before? The answer has a lot to do with auctioneer extraordinaire Aurel Bacs.
+ Cam Wolf
Art speculators bid to lose: David Geffen, Peter Brant, and other collectors pledge to bid on the art they want but new third-party backers aim to reap fees by getting outbid; ‘they don’t know what they’re doing.’
+ Kelly Crow
"Increasingly, the goal is to earn a quick payout from the fees surrounding guarantees rather than to bring home any actual paintings. New investors, many from real-estate and international finance, have discovered the guarantee and want to reshape it into a financial instrument entirely distinct from collecting art, with its own margins and strategies. All of this is roiling the houses and old-guard collectors, with some warning that the new generation is propping up the art market."
Sale of rare Nazi-era Porsche sputters after Sotheby’s auction blunder: The bidding for the Porsche Type 64, built by Ferdinand Porsche in 1939, was supposed to open at $13 million but instead started at $30 million. The one-of-a-kind Porsche, built for an unrealized road race on Germany’s new autobahn, through the Austrian Alps to Rome, failed to sell and the auction was halted. “As bidding opened on the Type 64, increments were mistakenly displayed on the screen, causing unfortunate confusion in the room,” RM Sotheby’s said in a statement on Sunday. “We take pride in conducting our world-class auctions with integrity and we take our responsibility to our clients very seriously.” It did not name the auctioneer.
+ Neil Vigdor
"The biggest secret in the art world is that no one knows what's contemporary art!" -- Holger Liebs - Art critic + former editor-in-chief of Monopol magazine
Art Auctions Deep Dive
