Stories

At the top of the market, records were set for Huang Yuxing, Yayoi Kusama and solid gains realized for Sanyu

Sotheby’s sold a rare and storied Roman statue of Aphrodite in London for a record price of £18.6 million ($24.6 million). Sotheby’s says the price is a record for any ancient marble sculpture sold at auction. The work was offered in a single lot sale with a low estimate of £2 million.

Art Basel Miami Beach re-emerged from its two-year suspended animation seemingly without so much as a cryogenic burn. Like everything else in our pandemic-paused world, the last fair seemed like it had taken place just yesterday or in another era entirely.

A new record price has been set for the Polish-French artist Balthus (also called Balthasar Klossowski de Rola) at Yongle’s Fall auction in Beijing. The Cat in the Mirror III from 1977 sold for 166,750,000 Yuan or $26.19 million. 

Bonhams sale of the collection of Amalia de Schulthess totaled $15.2 million in New York today. The bulk of the value of the collection lay in two works, a Magritte from 1937 that had not been seen in public for seven decades and a piece of furniture-cum-sculpture by Alberto Giacometti. 

That state of France has given up. The minister of culture announced that the French state would not try to acquire the Rothschild Rembrandt painting, “Le Porte-étandard” painted in 1636 but acquired by James de Rothschild in 1840.

It may be hard to believe when the biggest event at this year’s Miami Art Week was a fashion show/tribute to the recently deceased designer Virgil Abloh, but it took a very long time for luxury brands to find a way into Art Basel. After the first major art fair since the dawn of the NFT era, it would seem that digital art is trying to find its footing on a similar path.

It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed walking out of Acquavella gallery’s career-spanning show of Picasso’s drawings. It’s also hard not to feel inspired and even covetous of the work and it’s immediacy. Although none of the drawings in the show are for sale, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a path from Acquavella to acquiring

Acquavella Gallery’s seminal show of Picasso drawings features some of the most significant works on paper from the artist’s entire body of work but it is also, in part, a record of some recent auction sales for Picasso works on paper.

The understated title of Acquavella gallery’s overwhelming show of drawings by Pablo Picasso belies the impressive feat behind the exhibition. Picasso: Seven Decades of Drawing was assembled as a collaboration between Acquavella and Olivier Berggruen with the help of art historian Christine Poggi

Two former drivers of the 20th Century and Impressionist markets return to the top of the table

New York’s November auctions totaled $2.54 billion across the sales of the Macklowe and Cox collections and the re-defined categories of Modern, 20th Century and now present-day art. This is the highest total for a November auction cycle in New York.