Review of the London Contemporary Art Sales

Fellow appraiser Denny Levy sent me this Chelsea Art Galleries and contemporary internet art portal press release of very good analysis of the recent contemporary art sales in London. The press release not only has analysis, but some excellent graphs and statistics comparing estimates to sales, top lot reviews, and comparison to the November sales. The review is very thorough and includes information on Sotheby's, Christie's, Phillips and both the day and evening sales with sales total and number of lots. I tried to paste the compete release with graphics into the AW Blog, but there would be some real bad formatting issues. To read the full press release and view the graphs, click HERE.


The Chelsea Press Release states of the sales for the contemporary art auctions in London, February 5-13th, totaled £36 million (£43 million including premium), 26% below the low end estimate. The auctions brought less than 1/5th of last year's sales total of £207 million, strongly reflecting the current financial climate. Not all auction houses were affected equally by the downturn: While Sotheby's and Phillips De Pury's evening auctions reached 18% of last year's sales, Christie's evening auction only reached 11% of last year's sales after failing to find buyers for its two highest estimated lots. The day auctions faired slightly better, with Phillips De Pury at 36% of last years results, Sotheby's at 29%, and Christie's at 19%. The very high end of the market has been hit the hardest, as the lack of sellers and buyers has left the auction houses without the super star lots that traditionally make up half of their auction sales. In February 2008, the 15 most valuable lots (of 778 sold lots) contributed more than 50% of the sales total. This month, not only were the high-end lots much less valuable, but 4 of the 7 highest estimated lots failed to sell. In 2008, the average value for the top ten winning bids was £9.4 million, this year it was £1.4 million.