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Art Market Shocks & Leon Black’s Math

LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 01: One of the greatest works by Gustav Klimt ever to appear at auction, his luminous Bauerngarten (Flower Garden) sold for £47.9 million ($59.3 million) at Sotheby's on March 1, 2017 in London, England. Klimt's Bauerngarten (Flower Garden) achieved the third highest price for any work ever sold at auction in Europe, and a new record price for any landscape by the artist. The painting was the star lot of Sotheby's Evening Sales of Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist art tonight, which made an overall total of £194.7 million ($240.8 million) - the highest total for any auction ever held in London. In a sale in which five lots sold for over £10 million, other highlights included Pablo Picasso's Plant de Tomates, painted days before the liberation of Paris in 1944, and a new record for Alfred Sisley. (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby's)
Marion Maneker
May 29, 2024

For all the commentary about the art world, there is a stunning lack of writing that actually attempts to understand the business itself. Last week, for example, I was speaking to the C.E.O. of one of the major auction houses when he brought up something I had written a few months earlier about a competitor. Surprisingly, this executive thanked me for taking the time to actually analyze the company. He wasn’t being mean-spirited. Rather, he was expressing a frustration shared by many art industry insiders about their portrayal by the media, both in the trade press and when global news outlets attempt to write about the industry.