Stories

Few artists have as dramatic and visible public debuts as Jammie Holmes did on May 30th, 2020 when he paid for five planes in five separate cities—Detroit, Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles and New York—to fly banners of text, each one displaying one of the last five sentences George Floyd uttered when he was murdered five da

We sifted through our database of auction sales for all of the works made since 2000 that were sold in 2021. That gave us a total market value of $1.76 billion for 21st century art sold at public auction at the major auction houses last year. 

The holidays in America bring to mind images of the painter Norman Rockwell. Dismissed during much of his lifetime and after as a mere ‘illustrator’ best known for his magazine covers for the Saturday Evening Post, Rockwell’s work has become immensely valuable in a relatively short amount of time.

The LiveArt Hot 25 shines a light on artists whose work saw the most dynamic bidding in public auctions during 2021. From our comprehensive database of auctions, we isolated the artists whose work was bid the farthest above the low estimates.

Hong Kong’s HKD 2.68 billion ($344 million) sales at Christie’s and Phillips were a surprising mixture of global, Western and Asian artists. There were a number of breakout sales for artists with relatively brief sales histories and works very recently made.

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. 

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.

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