Top Sales of 2012

WIth the end of the year fast approaching, we will start to see top ten lists and analysis of the art market performance in 2012.

Bloomberg looks at the impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art sales in London and New York held in 2012.  The sales total comes to $3.8 billion, up from $3 billion the previous year.  According to the article, postwar art is where most of the growth has been generated.

Bloomberg lists the top ten sales of the year in the article, and I have posted the top three below, which include Munch's Scream, a Rothko at #2 and #3.

Bloomberg reports

Evening sales of Impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art in London and New York tallied $3.8 billion, up from $3 billion last year. Postwar and contemporary art accounted for $2.3 billion.
“In 2012, postwar and contemporary art became the dominant category,” Plummer said. “Postwar has become a new blue-chip where modern art was the blue-chip 10 years ago.”

Here are the year’s 10 most valuable artworks.

1. Munch’s “The Scream” set a record for a work of art at auction when it sold for $119.9 million at Sotheby’s on May 2.

The result smashed the previous top auction price of $106.5 million, established in May 2010 by Pablo Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust.”

The picture was consigned by Norwegian businessman Petter Olsen, whose father, Thomas, was a friend, neighbor and patron of the artist. It was bought by Apollo Global Management co- founder Leon Black, according to the Wall Street Journal. Black is also a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, where “The Scream” is on view until April 29, 2013.

2. Mark Rothko’s fiery “Orange, Red, Yellow” sold for $86.9 million at Christie’s International in New York on May 8. The 1961 painting was one of 13 artworks being sold from the estate of David Pincus, the retired chairman of apparel manufacturer Pincus Brothers-Maxwell, who died in December 2011. Its price surpassed the artist’s previous auction peak of $72.8 million, set in 2007 for a painting from David Rockefeller’s collection.

3. Rothko’s “No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue)” sold for $75.1 million at Sotheby’s in New York on Nov. 13. The Rothko was consigned by Anne Marion, owner of Burnett Cos. in Fort Worth, Texas, whose husband, John L. Marion, had been Sotheby’s chairman and chief auctioneer.

The painting was among eight pieces selected by Rothko for his solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1954. In 1982, Ben Heller, a major collector and private dealer of Abstract Expressionism, sold the Rothko for less than $500,000.

Source: Bloomberg