Contemporary Art Totals Down, Modern Up As Market Shifts in New York

Colin Gleadell breaks down some numbers from the New York sales cycle. If this is the bursting of a bubble (as the headline on this column once read before Gleadell, no doubt, had them tone it down), the art market is in pretty good shape:

Breaking the figures down, the most telling outcome is that impressionist and modern art (from c.1870 to c.1945 with late Picasso added in), which has been trailing contemporary art almost continually in the New York sales for the last 10 years, came out fractionally on top. The stats read approximately $1.196 billion to $1.164 billion – a triumph for more historically proven values. While the former is a record in that category, with a debt to Mr Liu Yiqian who bought a $170 million Modigliani nude, the latter is the lowest total for contemporary art in New York for two years. It’s only the second time that a total has gone down from one series to the next ($400 million down from May 2015) since the credit crunch of 2008/09.

Art Sales: contemporary art loses momentum (Telegraph)