This analysis of the Spring 2018 Impressionist and Modern sales (including the Rockefeller estate) results—including a look at market share by artist and a list of the most dynamic lots—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.
Nearly tripling the total sales volume of the previous Spring, New York's May sales cycle was dominated by Impressionist and Modern art in way that has not been seen for more than a decade. Yes, a huge portion of that gain was due to the presence of more than $680m in Impressionist and Modern art from the Peggy and David Rockefeller estate. But even without that huge cache of high-quality material, the Impressionist and Modern category was up significantly in dollar volume.
For reasons that are not entirely clear, the Impressionist and Modern category was ascendant this season confirming a shift in the market also present last year in November. Indeed, without the additional material from Rockefeller, the sales totals were steady between November and May in New York.
Although the day sale totals have remained steady from November to May at around $100m, we've analyzed these numbers as one single event because the three Evening sales (Christie's & Sotheby's Imp-Mod Evening sales + the Rockefeller Evening sale of European art) accounted for $1.4bn of the the $1.544bn total in the category.
There were 862 lots offered in the category this May which is only ten more lots than in 2017.
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