After its already flamboyant rebound in 2021, the “super transactions” of the global art market will have literally exploded the counters in 2022!
Ignoring a gloomy economic context, the “high net worth collectors”, the billionaire art collectors, raised the auction beyond 30 million dollars for 52 works in 2022! A real record, which beats the previous one dating from 2015, with 36 works sold above this amount in 2015, according to data noted by AFP.
Two big events will have driven the bulk of these mega deals: Christie’s sale of the collection of Microsoft co-founder the late Paul Allen on November 9-10, 2022 raised $1.62 billion – becoming the highest ever made for a private collection – and that of the Macklowe couple at Sotheby’s, which had reached a total of 922 million dollars a few months earlier.
Andy Warhol at the auction history podium
However, the highest sale of the year was achieved outside of these two major auctions. Became the 2nd most expensive work at auction in history after the Salvator Mundi by L. da Vinci ($450.3M) – a portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol, Shot Sage Blue Marilynwas acquired for $195.04 million in a sale of Thomas and Doris Amman’s foundation at Christie’s.
Shot Sage Blue Marilyn has also become the most expensive piece of 20th century art, a place so far prized by The Women of Algiers of picassoa mythical painting by the Spanish artist sold for 179.4 million dollars in 2015.
The Paul Allen Collection has seen several Old Master lots sell above $100 million, including the 2nd and 3rd highest transactions of the year – and also entering the top ten in auction history. art : The Poseuses, Together (small format)by Georges Seurat (1888), which left at 149.4 million dollars, thus made its debut in 6th place, and The Mount Sainte-Victoire by Paul Cézanne, at 137.79 million dollars, in the 10th.
Rain of records among the “stars” of art
Among the other super deals of 2022, several artists have also reached their own records. Besides Warhol, Seurat and Cézanne, Van Gogh (Orchard with cypresses$117.18M), Paul Gauguin (Maternity II$105.73M) and Gustav Klimt (Birch Forest$105.73 million), exceeded the $100 million mark for a work.
Lucian Freud (Large Interior, W11 (After Watteau)$86.265 million), René Magritte (The Empire of Lights$79.8 million), Jasper Johns (Small False Start, $55.35M), Paul Signac (Concarneau, morning calm, $39.32M), but also Piet Mondrian (Composition no. 2, 1930$51M) or even Edgar Degas (The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, $41.6M). All these artists have set their auction records this year…
Visual: Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, Andy Warhol, 1964 @ Christie’s