This look at the first half of 2018 market share by artist was prepared with data from Blouin Art Info. It is available to AMMpro subscribers. Monthly subscriptions begin with the first month free. Feel free to subscribe and cancel before you are billed. 

Blouin Art Info has done some calculations to conclude that Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips together have sold $5.682bn in art during the first six months of 2018. It's worth noting that Arttactic has separately released numbers that put the combined figure of the three auction houses at $6.911bn:

ArtTactic said Christie’s and Phillips have gained market share in the period: Phillips reported auction sales rose to $511.8m (£386m), up 59% from the same period a year ago, while Christie’s grew 27% to $3.6bn, and Sotheby’s rose 11.3% to $2.8bn.

We're not here to referee between the two calculations when we can simply wait until both Sotheby's and Christie's release their numbers on the first half sales. For our purposes here, we can all agree that sales totals are up across the board.

As a general rule of thumb, the art market does more business in the first half of the year than the second, primarily because the first half contains more sales cycles with London hosting March and June events and New York's Spring event often featuring the most ambitious lots.

This year saw the additional sales 'season' of the Rockefeller collection in New York which might further skew the sales figures toward the first half of the year. The Rockefeller estate also seems to have had a strong effect on Christie's overall sell through percentage for the first half. This is worth noting simply because Christie's has made a point of corporate strategy to increase sell-through rates as a way to demonstrate value to buyers. Though of the three houses, Phillips seems to have posted the best sell-through rates, no doubt a feature of their small and targeted sales.

Blouin's numbers offer us the opportunity to run some quick market share calculations:

This discussion of Sotheby's strategy and Christy MacLear's departure from Art Agency, Partners 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.

Late on Friday before a holiday week, ARTnews published the news that Christy MacLear, a high-profile hire at Art Agency, Partners, the advisory division of Sotheby's, had left the company quietly. Normally in these situations, a Summer Friday news dump, the news is coming from a corporation looking to minimize the coverage and allow all parties to move forward with minimal embarrassment.

This particular new dump didn't seem to come from Sotheby's, though. The initial reports were instigated by ARTnews. Sotheby's response suggested they were caught unawares on Friday afternoon which caused executives from the firm to provide on-the-record quotes Monday.

If the goal was to minimize MacLear's departure, the strategy didn't work. If the goal was to maximize the coverage or put MacLear into the best light, that didn't seem to work either. Though a near real-time response came on Twitter from an art market gadfly engaged in a long-running quixotic battle with the auction houses.

This surprising graft from the Rauschenberg Foundation did not take. It may tell something important about Sotheby’s AAP strategy in the artist’s estate business https://t.co/VBnOikYpxg

— alain servais (@aservais1) June 29, 2018

Everyone is being frostily polite in the news reports. MacLear, who is the more likely party to have alerted ARTnews, finally provided the site with a quote:

It has always been my honor to work on planning legacies of artists—I took the leap to AAP/Sotheby’s to verify the need and then innovate in the field. We did that, and now it is time for me to work on behalf of artists independently after my non-compete period.

Sotheby's countered with this from AAP's Allan Schwartzmann:

The business is moving forward in several directions in a healthy way—we are just beginning a second phase consultancy for several prominent artists of different generations regarding major museum placements; gallery affiliations; funding programs; and long-term legacy planning. There is increasing demand for our artist advisory services.

In other words, Schwartzmann and MacLear are signaling a footrace to sign up more estates. Which brings us back to the gadfly's question: Is Sotheby's APP strategy succeeding? Servais's critique isn't very clear and it is unlikely that we'll get a more articulate expression of that critique beyond the implicit argument that the auction houses are an expansionary threat to the art market eco-system.

This look at the last 12 years of Sotheby's June Contemporary Evening sale performance 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.

Sotheby's has been rewarded for sticking with selling Contemporary art in London in June. There was a great deal of talk after Art Basel of auction fatigue. But little evidence of it in the sales results. Our friends at Pi-eX put together this chart of last 12 years of Sotheby's Contemporary Evening sale results in London. Judging from the chart (below,) Sotheby's had the biggest year-over-year leap in results this year.