Christie's auctioneer Gemma Sudlow during the sale of Jean-Michel Basquiat's In This Case (1983) on May 11 in New York, which sold for US$93.1 million after a bidding battle between six buyers.
Courtesy of Christie's Images Ltd. 2021Global demand, ample supply, and art-based nonfungible tokens (NFTs) powered Christie’s to US$3.5 billion in sales in the first half of this year, 13% above total sales in the same period of 2019—before the pandemic, the auction house said on Tuesday.
The total reflects the auction house’s strength in live and online auctions and private sales, Guillaume Cerutti, Christie’s CEO, said in a call with reporters on Tuesday. It was a “very strong rebound, very strong performance, in the first half,” Cerutti says.
Christie’s is comparing its 2021 sales so far to two years ago because the art world skidded to halt in the first part of last year as the coronavirus pandemic took hold and businesses across the world shut down. The auction house and its competitors were forced to cancel live sales.
The 2021 results were driven by the sale of 87% of all lots presented (compared with about 82% in past years), an influx of new buyers—31% of which are millennial age, and “record participation” by buyers in Asia, whose purchases represented 39% of the value of Christie’s global sales.
Asian buyers were active in sales conducted throughout the world, not just in Christie’s Hong Kong saleroom, and across categories within fine art and luxury.
Christie’s also noted that it sold seven of the 12 most expensive works on the auction block in the first half, including Pablo Picasso’s Femme assise prés d’une fenêtre, which sold for more than US$103 million at a New York 20th-century evening sale in May, and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s In This Case, which sold for US$93.1 million at the New York 21st-century sale, also in May.
Christie’s sale of Beeple’s NFT Everydays: The First 5,000 Days for US$69 million in a March online sale also was notable for bringing NFTs into the wider public consciousness and ushering in a wave of sales at Christie’s and its competitors. At Christie’s, these sales, comprising about 30 NFTs, totaled US$93.2 million in all.
According to Marcus Fox, Christie’s global managing director of 20th- and 21st-century art, the sales have attracted 400 new clients to the auction house from around the world, with each new sale bringing in new collectors. In a news release, Christie’s said 78% of NFT bidders registered with the auction house were new to Christie’s, and that their average age was 38—13 years younger than the average age of clients in other sales.
Of the NFTs purchased, 85%, including Beeple’s Everydays, were paid for with cryptocurrency, Ben Gore, Christie’s chief operating officer, said at the press event.
The first year also showcased the auction house’s recalibration of its sales strategy, moving away from categorizing sales by art movements, such as impressionist or contemporary, to categorizing them broadly by time period. The shift allowed Christie’s to reach a broader array of clients, according to Alex Rotter, chairman of the combined 20th- and 21st-century departments.
The 21st-century category, too, created a platform for a range of underrepresented artists, including female artists and artists of color, Rotter said.
While NFTs have attracted new buyers, collectors have also come to Christie’s for the first time through online sales. According to the auction house, two-thirds of new buyers have bought online, 31% are millennials, and 32% are women.
Online sales were up 178% from last year to US$22.7 million in the first half, and included the US$1.6 million sale in Dubai of a Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon Ref. 5002P-001, made in 2004—a record for an online watch sale, Christie’s said.
Private sales continued to see strong growth despite the revival of live auctions. The category had risen 139% in 2020 in part because live sales were dormant amid the pandemic, but so far this year, private sale results are up 238% from the first half of 2019 to about US$850 million, driven in part by pop-up exhibition galleries in Southampton, N.Y., Aspen, Colo., and Monte Carlo.
Cerutti said the overall results reflect the auction house’s shifts in response to the market, ranging from offering NFTs, to new sales categories, to embracing the global nature of the business. “It has been, of course, with the Covid situation, a challenging time, but also in many ways a moment where we have transformed ourselves,” Cerutti said.
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