This analysis of the London Impressionist and Modern auction sales results—made possible with data from our partners at Live Auction Art—is available to AMMpro subscribers. Subscribers get the first month free on monthly subscriptions. Feel free to cancel at any time before the month is up. Sign up for AMMpro here.

The London sales cycle of Impressionist and Modern art showed a resurgence in value in the category. When the Impressionist and Modern works included in Phillips sale held during the week of Contemporary art auctions are added to the Impressionist and Modern sales totals at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the Impressionist and Modern category significantly out-performed Contemporary art.

Our numbers show almost £393m in total sales for Impressionist and Modern art in London which is nearly £50m more than the sales volume for Contemporary art (we’ll publish those numbers shortly.) Here the news is that more money was spent on Modern art. And the overall driver of that spending is the market for works by Pablo Picasso.

The market share numbers (shown below) make the case in the starkest manner. But first let’s address some high-level learnings from the sales.