Sotheby's

auction house

Maurizio Cattelan’s famous duct-taped banana could bring more than $1m at auction

"Comedian" (2019) is one of the most viral (and controversial) works of art of the past decade; Sotheby's is betting it has not lost its a-peel

Painting by AI robot Ai-Da could bring more than $120,000 at Sotheby's

The robotic brainchild of British gallerist Aidan Meller will make her auction debut on Halloween

Theresa Reiwer wins top award at Lumen Prize for digital art

German-born artist working on ethics and AI leads the winners in nine categories of 13th annual edition of the world’s leading prize for art created with technology

Art marketanalysis

What if luxury is art sellers’ salvation, and not their sin

New moves by Gagosian, Sotheby’s and others aim to boost the art trade via high-end retail

Sunny £13.2m 1960s David Hockney brightens Sotheby's Frieze week evening sale

The small 23-lot contemporary art auction last night realised a total of £37.5m

Eyelash magnate Sydell Miller’s art collection estimated to bring around $200m at Sotheby’s

The sale's most valuable lot, a water lily painting by Claude Monet, is expected to sell in the region of $60m

Diaryblog

‘I’m encouraged by Marina Abramović’: FKA twigs takes over Sotheby’s

Auction house says it has ‘never presented a work of this kind in its 280-year history’

The art market slump, the artist freed in the US-Russia prisoner swap, Max Ernst in Paris — podcast

What’s behind the troubles facing auction houses and galleries? Plus, Sasha Skochilenko recounts her experience of being arrested—and incarcerated—in Russia, and the story behind a 1937 Surrealist painting by Ernst

Sotheby’s core earnings down by 88%, according to Financial Times report

A document sent to investors, and seen by the newspaper, ahead of investment from Abu Dhabi’s wealth fund also reveals a 25% drop in auction sales

Art marketanalysis

Global turmoil and rising taxes tilt art trade towards new era

Increasingly unsettled elites are making a struggling market even less predictable

Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund to acquire minority stake in Sotheby's

Patrick Drahi will remain auction house's majority shareholder in $1bn deal, as ADQ buys shares to "reduce leverage" and support "growth and innovation"

Sotheby’s launches multi-use space in Hong Kong’s business district

The 24,000 sq. ft location in the city’s Landmark Chater building will host exhibitions as well as a concept store—currently featuring Banksy’s famed shredded Girl with a Balloon

Billionaire collector Ken Griffin buys Stegosaurus skeleton for record $45m at Sotheby’s

This is the most valuable fossil to ever sell at auction, as the market for dinosaur bones continues to climb

Muted Old Master evening sales in London provide relative bargains but no fireworks

Slim auctions at Christie's and Sotheby's saw a rediscovered Quentin Metsys and a modestly priced Botticelli come to the block

Jordaens painting to be sold after settlement with heirs of Jewish bank shareholders

The work, to be auctioned at Sotheby’s today, was one of more than 2,500 held as collateral and sold, shortly before the Nazi invasion, by the Dutch bank Lisser & Rosenkranz

Sotheby's shakes up senior level staff in Asia and Europe

Elaine Holt has been appointed as the deputy chair of Sotheby's Asia, while six other specialists across locations have received title changes

Lisa Movius. With additional reporting by Kabir Jhala
Auctionsanalysis

Sotheby’s Modern and contemporary sale in London nets a tepid £83.6m and prompts question—is the summer auction season over?

Bright spots in the heavily guaranteed auction included a £15m Basquiat and competition for the collection of Ralph I. Goldenberg

Sotheby’s Paris will relocate to new space in historic former gallery

The new location at 83 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré will offer 30% more exhibition space

From one hand to another: painting reworked by Rubens to be sold at Sotheby’s

Conservation has revealed the extensive changes Rubens made to a work originally by Herri Met de Bles

Auctionspreview

Sotheby's launches first fine art Sealed auction without reserve

Yayoi Kusama's "Phantom Polka Dots of Fate, Ordained by Heaven, Were the Greatest Gift Ever for Me" to be sold by Sealed Auctions and on view in Sotheby’s New Bond Street Galleries. Success of Sealed Auctions has led to an expansion into fine art

By Max Moore. SVP, Head of Sealed Sales, Global Fine Art
Advertisement feature bySotheby's Sealed

German medieval altarpiece wings that remained in one family for 500 years to be auctioned at Sotheby’s

The portraits painted by Bartholomäus Zeitblom carry an estimate of £400,000-£600,000

Sotheby’s to lay off dozens of employees in UK with further cuts planned in other locations

Auction house is in “consultation period” ahead of redundancies, sources say

Art marketanalysis

The Gray Market: Why Sotheby’s $700m art-backed debt security is an acid test for the trade’s intentions

The large-scale investment vehicle raises major questions about who gets to decide where, how and to whom art circulates

Stolen, century-old train-shaped weathervane returned to authorities in Vermont

The 114-year-old iron sculpture of a steam locomotive was stolen from the roof of a train station in 1983

The Week in Art podcast | Tate’s historic women artists show, Dia at 50, Martin Wong’s record-breaking painting

Exploring Now You See Us, which celebrates the output of Vanessa Bell, Mary Beale and many more, plus conversations about Dia’s legacy and the ’visual linguist‘ Wong

Sotheby's makes $198.1m in consistently strong Modern evening sale in New York

The results were led by Monet's 'Meules à Giverny' and Leonora Carrington's record-breaking 'Les Distractions de Dagobert'

Sotheby's $227.9m double-header marks tentative start to New York spring auctions

Strong sell-through rate and multiple artist records offset soft demand for top lots

Haystack painting by Claude Monet could sell for more than $30m at Sotheby’s New York

Sotheby’s will sell a rare Monet haystack five years after a similar work broke the artist’s record at auction

Four Joan Mitchell paintings could collectively bring more than $50m during New York's spring auctions

The four works, spanning nearly 40 years of the Abstract Expressionist’s career, will hit the auction block at Sotheby’s in May