Sotheby’s auctions the highest sales in its history

Sotheby’s auction house announced that during 2021 it achieved the highest sales proceeds in its history, which is $7.3 billion, as a result of two main factors during the pandemic represented by the emergence of new interest thanks to internet broadcasting, and a remarkable turnout of buyers from Asia.

The $7.3 billion is the “highest total” Sotheby’s has achieved in “277 years of existence,” the New York-based London house bought in 2019 by French-Israeli telecommunications magnate Patrick Drahi.

Of this total, auctions generated $6 billion (plus 1.3 billion for private sales), an increase of 71 percent over 2020. This number was an increase of 26 percent even from 2019, which preceded the health crisis.

Experts from auction houses and the art market noted that the pandemic did not eliminate the appetite of collectors and did not limit their capabilities, but the year 2020 witnessed a decrease in the supply that was returned and put forward in 2021.

One of the most prominent auctions this year is the one that Sotheby’s held last November on the McCullough family’s art collection. It reached 676 million dollars in one evening, the proceeds of the sale of these works as a result of the divorce of New York real estate magnate Harry McCullough and his wife Linda Borg, who was the emeritus director of the “Metropolitan Museum” in New York.

New class of buyers

The acquisition of the bronze “nose” sculpture of Alberto Giacometti for $78.3 million by the founder of cryptocurrency platform “True”, Chinese-American businessman Justin San, 31, is an example of the emergence of a new category of collectors.

Sotheby’s noted that 46 percent of acquisitions worth more than $5 million in 2021 came from Asian collectors.

Asians also bought the most expensive piece in McCullough’s collection, “Number 7” by Mark Rothko, which brought in $82.4 million. Buyers from the same continent also acquired the painting “Girl with a Balloon” (“The Girl with the Balloon”) by British street artist Banksy, which was given a new title, “Love is in the Bin” (“Love in the Trash”), for 18.6 million. British pounds ($25.5 million).

Given the impossibility of holding in-person activities in 2020 due to the pandemic, auction houses were forced to innovate and turn more to digital means, which “allowed access to an unprecedented number of participants during the past twelve months,” Sotheby’s explained, noting that 39 Percent of buyers in 2021 are “new”.

In this context, digital pieces with non-fungible token technology (NFT) entered the art market in 2021, for example, the founding program for the Internet in its current form was sold for 5.4 million dollars. But total NFT sales at Sotheby’s are still relatively low (100 million in 2021).

Last April, the Nike Air Yeezy 1 shoes worn by singer Kanye West broke the absolute record for selling shoes at auction, with a price of $ 1.8 million during an auction organized by Sotheby’s.