«GOOD BUSINESS IS THE BEST ART»

China remains Christie’s biggest market for wine -- not a big part of the U.S. business -- and Asian art, and Chinese buyers are also being felt in the markets for Old Master paintings. One example given by the firm (despite the fact that it came in London in July, which is the second half of 2011, not the first) was Michelangelo’s A male nude, seen from behind (recto); Studies of male nudes (verso), which sold to an Asian collector for $5.1 million.In the U.S., Christie’s total is boosted, as usual, by high prices for individual works, like a Roy Lichtenstein drawing ($2 million), a 1961 Mark Rothko, ($33.7 million) and many, many Warhols, including Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait ($38.4 million).Postwar and contemporary art continues to be the largest part of the auction market, bringing in $702.6 million, up 52 percent over the first half of 2010. “The contemporary market has returned,” Christie’s new CEO Steven P. Murphy told Bloomberg. “It’s done so for a wide range of names.” The big-ticket evening sale of contemporary art at Christie's New York in May 2011 totaled $301 million, while in 2010 the same sale came it at almost $232 million.

-Artnet
July 21 2011