This week's collection of whimsical and curious stories will discuss the byzantine world of art auctions.
The only way is up - With global financial news gripped by fears of recession, rising inflation, and tumbling markets, there just remains one place full of optimism; the market for world-famous art. While the Dow Jones has lost around 9% of its value over the past year, the All Art Index (which tracks the sales of top-ranking artists worldwide) has gained 21% in the same period of time (Link).
Famous pieces of art are mostly bought and sold at public auctions where sometimes head-line grabbing prices are paid for paint on canvass. A recent round of auctions at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips in New York racked up almost $2.8bn in transactions making it the third-biggest bidding season the market has ever seen (Link).
Telephone bidding at Sotheby's. London 2008
Picasso - As is often the case, works by Pablo Picasso take center stage in many of the most staggering auction results. Some of his works fetch more than $100M making him currently the top-grossing artist at auctions worldwide (Link). Central to Picasso's work are portraits of his various muses with whom he was said to have "complicated affairs" ranging from "sensual to tormented". And so it was this year when his painting "Femme nue Couchée" went for $67.5m. Described as a "sensuous depiction of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter as a multi-limbed sea creature", it might go some way in explaining what made his relationships difficult.
"Femme nue couchée" by Pablo Picasso (sold for $67.5M in May 2022)
Show me the money - Most auctions tend to go off without a hitch (unless it is a self-destructing Banksy (Link) or the botched sale of a Porsche that wasn't even a real Porsche (Link)). Every year tens of thousands of expensive pieces of art change hands in a discreet and reasonable manner - unless buyers renege on the money. In fact, non-payment can become a major headache for auction houses. In 2003, Sotheby's even sued Michael Jackson for failing to pay $1.6M for two works by French painter Adolphe William Bouguereau (Link). Defaults have especially been on the rise since the introduction of online bidding. Common excuses for non-payment apparently include blaming children for making a bid or the family cat jumping on the computer mouse. Mis-reading the print on the computer screen is apparently also a common excuse ("I thought I was bidding on a Rodin instead of a Redon") - Link. Sometimes, it is also just plain buyers-remorse, as in the case of Christie's suing over non-payment for Jean- Michel Basquiat’s "The Field Next to the Other Road".
"The Field Next to the Other Road" by Jean-Michel Basquiat (sold for $37.1M in 2015)