This 13-year analysis of the February Contemporary Art Evening sales was made possible with data from our friends at Pi-eX. It is available to AMMpro subscribers. Subscriptions begin with a free month for the curious.
If you had the feeling the Winter Contemporary sales in London last week were a bit of a letdown, you weren't wrong. On a like-for-like basis, these sales have taken a big step back to 2016 levels when the overall market experienced a steep 16% decline from the previous year, according to Clare McAndrew's recent report for Art Basel and UBS.
Add to that the big lump of the final price of David Hockney's Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott which sold for £37m. But if we look at the composition of these sales in the chart below, we can see that the parallels to 2016 are quite strong.
Notice that the top end of the market of works over £10m is quite constrained.
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