Bloomberg is reporting that Christie's saw a 10% growth rate during 2012. Much of the growth is attributed to the top end of the conemporary market. The growth in contemporary art sales help offset contraction from Asia and the Middle East.
According to Bloomberg Christie's sold $6.23 billion in art in 2012 and a third consecutive year of record sales. Post war and living artist sales soared 33%.
2013 will certainly be an interesting year for art sales.
Bloomberg reports
Source: BloombergGrowing demand for contemporary art helped sales climb 10 percent at Christie’s International in 2012, even as its market contracted in Asia and the Middle East.
The London-based auction house sold 3.9 billion pounds ($6.23 billion) of art and collectibles in 2012, setting a pound-sterling record for the company for the third successive year. Public sales of works by postwar and living artists grew 33 percent to continue as the company’s most lucrative category, raising 986.5 million pounds in 2012, Christie’s said in an e- mailed release today. All auction sales quoted include fees.
Continuing uncertainty in the financial markets and concerns about tax rises in the U.S. have encouraged wealthy collectors to spend more money on art. Big-ticket buyers are concentrating on gold-standard contemporary names such as Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, Francis Bacon and Gerhard Richter.
“It’s not non-collectors looking to move cash into art,” Steven Murphy, Christie’s chief executive, said in an interview. “Existing clients are spending more, and many of our new bidders have previously bought from dealers and art fairs. They like the transparency of auctions.”
Post-war works captured eight out of 10 of Christie’s biggest auction sales in 2012. Rothko’s 1961 painting “Orange, Red, Yellow” became the most expensive contemporary work of art at auction when it sold for $86.9 million in New York in May.
It was the priciest of 49 works that sold for more than $10 million at Christie’s in 2012. The previous year, 32 works broke the eight-digit barrier.
Top Strength
“The strength of the top end of the market is encouraging people to sell great works,” Murphy said.
Sales of more than $1 million were down to 686 from 719 at Christie’s in 2011, reflecting the growing gap in demand for the most desirable “trophies” and the rest.
The Mei Moses World All Art Index, a survey of repeat sales at auctions compiled by www.artasanasset.com, was 3.3 percent down in 2012, the U.S.-based company said in an e-mail on Dec. 26.
“In prior times, success at the high end extended to the middle and lower ends of the market,” the database’s founder, Michael Moses, said in the e-mail. “If it continues it may mark a significant change in the future performance of the market.”
Auctions of Impressionist and modern works -- for years the powerhouse category of the market -- raised 623.6 million pounds in 2012 for Christie’s, an increase of 14 percent.
Slower China
Asian art was the company’s third-biggest seller at 415.2 million pounds, a drop of 25 percent on 2011. Demand for historic Chinese porcelain and jade declined in 2012 as growth in China’s economy slowed and the country prepared for a change of leadership in November.
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