Market: What’s Hot
December 2007
At the London mid-season contemporary sales, predictions of a market crash proved inaccurate, though there was
a bit more caution in the air than usual. Record totals were reached, but prices tended to stay within estimate. The sales included Chinese contemporary art and design objects; in the latter category, one in particular stood out at Christie’s on October 14: Marc Newson’s sleek Lockheed Lounge LC-1 (1985), which sold for £748,500 ($1.5 million), the highest price for the work of any living designer. Newson has described his metallic
masterpiece, created in 1985, as resembling an 18th-century chaise lounge recast as a blob of mercury.
At Sotheby’s London on October 12, a noteworthy record was set when Yue Minjun’s famous 1995 painting, "Execution," sold for a price of £2,932,500 ($5.9 million), over an estimate of £1.5–£2 million. The satirical painting of a mock firing squad, inspired by the 1989 crackdown on student protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, now stands as the most expensive work of Chinese contemporary art ever sold at auction. Because of its sensitive political content, "Execution" had not been shown in public before.
In the 16th century, the lines between art and science were blurrier than they are today. Among the geniuses who straddled both worlds was Albrecht Dürer. His rare anatomical treatise, Five Books on Human Proportion, illustrated with figures and diagrams by the artist, sold at Christie’s New York on October 5 for $73,000 (est. $20,000–$30,000). This work, the last that Dürer completed before his death in 1528, was the top lot in a sale called "Anatomy as Art," devoted to the collection of Dean Edell, a medical doctor and radio and TV personality.
On October 15, Swann Galleries in New York reached a milestone, its first million-dollar lot. The auction house, which specializes in works on paper, sold an incomplete set of Edward S. Curtis’s massive, 16-volume photobook, The North American Indian, for $1,048,000, in its fall photography sale. Curtis, who spent 20-plus years photographing Indians all over the United States as part of a "vanishing race" documentary project, planned to publish 500 copies, but the money ran out before 100 could be issued.
At Sotheby’s London on October 12, a noteworthy record was set when Yue Minjun’s famous 1995 painting, "Execution," sold for a price of £2,932,500 ($5.9 million), over an estimate of £1.5–£2 million. The satirical painting of a mock firing squad, inspired by the 1989 crackdown on student protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, now stands as the most expensive work of Chinese contemporary art ever sold at auction. Because of its sensitive political content, "Execution" had not been shown in public before.
In the 16th century, the lines between art and science were blurrier than they are today. Among the geniuses who straddled both worlds was Albrecht Dürer. His rare anatomical treatise, Five Books on Human Proportion, illustrated with figures and diagrams by the artist, sold at Christie’s New York on October 5 for $73,000 (est. $20,000–$30,000). This work, the last that Dürer completed before his death in 1528, was the top lot in a sale called "Anatomy as Art," devoted to the collection of Dean Edell, a medical doctor and radio and TV personality.
On October 15, Swann Galleries in New York reached a milestone, its first million-dollar lot. The auction house, which specializes in works on paper, sold an incomplete set of Edward S. Curtis’s massive, 16-volume photobook, The North American Indian, for $1,048,000, in its fall photography sale. Curtis, who spent 20-plus years photographing Indians all over the United States as part of a "vanishing race" documentary project, planned to publish 500 copies, but the money ran out before 100 could be issued.
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