Christie's and Sotheby's See Art Sales Spike in 2014

Market Watch reports that both Christie's and Sotheby's saw sizeable sales increases in the fine and decoartive arts.  Christie's sold $8.4 billion, up 17% from 2013, while Sotheby's sold $6 billion and was up 18%.  Both international auction houses set records for annual sales in 2014.

Each auction house noted 1/3 of sales were from new collectors. Christie's had 86 lots sell for over $10 million. The US was the largest purchaser, followed by Europe and then Asia. Both houses are looking for growth in emerging markets.

Some very interesting statistics that could prove useful in a market analysis.

Market Watch reports

The art market is still sizzling.

Christie's International PLC said Tuesday it sold $8.4 billion of fine and decorative art last year, up 17% from the year before and a record for the London-based company.

The total at privately held Christie's included $6.8 billion in auction sales and $1.5 billion in privately brokered art sales. The auction house sold $35 million of art online, up 60% from 2013.

Rival Sotheby's said it auctioned $6 billion in art last year, up 18% from the year before and also a record for the New York-based auctioneer.

Sotheby's said it will release consolidated totals, including its private sales, next month.

Both auction houses said roughly one-third of their buyers last year were first-timers, a sign that the art market still is being fueled by an expanding generation of newly wealthy people who are choosing to start collections.

For the most part, these new buyers are shopping at the top, seeking masterpieces at the highest price points in part because they seem like safe bets and status symbols.

Competition to win these coveted consignments is eating into the houses' profits, a phenomenon both houses say they are trying to combat this season.

To meet the demand for trophy art, Christie's offered up 86 artworks last year that wound up selling for more than $10 million apiece. The roster included an $82 million Andy Warhol silkscreen of Elvis Presley, "Triple Elvis [Ferus Type]," and a $65 million Édouard Manet portrait of a Parisian woman, "Springtime," that sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Christie's Chief Executive Patricia Barbizet, who took over from ousted former chief Steven Murphy last month, said the company owes much of its success to the "strong appetite" of contemporary-art collectors, but she said "other departments have been growing and doing well. Our success is global."

Ms. Barbizet declined to discuss her own strategy for the company, but she sought to dispel market rumors that she had hired the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., saying her own team would evaluate Christie's in-house.

In terms of collecting categories, Christie's sold $2.8 billion in postwar and contemporary art, up 39% from the year before and exceeding Sotheby's $1.6 billion total for the same category last year. Christie's sold $1.2 billion in Impressionist and modern art, up 19% from the year before but less than Sotheby's $1.4 billion total for selling similar art.

Christie's jewelry sales totaled $755 million, up 11% from 2013 and easily surpassing Sotheby's $602.5 million jewelry total. The company also sold $288.3 million of Old Masters and 19th-century art, up 13%, and $71.4 million of rare books and manuscripts, up 38%.

Competition between the two houses is expected to get more heated in Asia. Christie's sales of Asian art dropped 18% to $717 million last year, and its salerooms in the region also auctioned less art overall, dropping 10% to $844.1 million. Asian buyers still represent 27% of Christie's global clientele, however.

Ms. Barbizet said the figures indicate that traditional collectors of Asian art are shopping less at home and starting to expand and migrate to different categories such as jewelry and contemporary art, which they can find in multiple salesrooms and art fairs around the world.

In addition, Sotheby's is proving to be a tough competitor on the Asian front, with its sales of Asian art totaling $900 million and its Chinese clients buying more than $1 billion in art world-wide. Ms. Barbizet said Christie's would continue to bet big on Asia, particularly China.

Collectors from the U.S. outspent all rivals last year, taking home $3.3 billion of art from Christie's, up 16% from the year before. European collectors bought $2.7 billion in art from the company, up 26% from a year earlier. In all, the world's collectors were pretty evenly spread out, with Americans accounting for 38% of Christie's sales; Europeans accounting for 35% and Asian buyers accounting for 27%.

Christie's said it also remains committed to conducting sales at its hubs in India and the Middle East--where new buyers increased 23%, it said. Last year, it offered 78 online-only sales across 21 collecting categories, and bidders joined in from 69 countries.

The art market faces a new test during a round of Impressionist, modern and contemporary-art sales next month in London.

Source: Market Watch