PARIS, Dec. 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Between its second
IPO in 1988 and its delisting in October
2019, the prestigious American auction house often
reoriented its global strategy and made numerous operational
adjustments involving cost management, offering more guarantees,
structural reorganizations, new managerial team, etc. But Sotheby's
has arguably made the biggest change in its history this year, by
completely dematerializing its catalogs and asserting itself as the
leading platform for online Fine Art auctions.
"The history of Sotheby's over the past thirty years is a
marvelous illustration of the recent history of the Art
Market," says thierry Ehrmann, President and Founder of
Artmarket.com and of its Artprice department. Artprice traces this
history through the three main periods preceding Sotheby's
acquisition by Patrick Drahi and its digital transformation in
2020.
1988 – 2000: two successive bubbles
At the end of the 1980s globalization took Art prices to new
heights. The $78 million hammered in
1990 for Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Au Moulin de la Galette (1876) set a historic
record at Sotheby's which lasted 14 years. But the financial
disequilibrium resulting from the arrival of Japanese collectors
supported by their fast growing economy led to a price crisis often
referred to as the "Impressionist bubble".
After a couple of difficult years in 1991-1992 (that dealers and
galleries still remember), the Art Market rapidly stabilized.
Sotheby's intensified its operations taking advantage of
technological innovations linked to the development of Internet. In
1999, Sotheby's recorded 27,550 Fine Art transactions, the highest
annual number in its history. But the "Internet bubble"
ended with a stock market meltdown.
2001 – 2008: up to the last moment...
For three years, from 2001 to 2003, Sotheby's gradually reduced
the intensity of its operations. This allowed the firm to return to
a more solid base which underpinned the following four years
(2004-2007) and a quadrupling of its Fine Art auction turnover
(3.8x). The Art Market was entering a new era and Sotheby's wanted
to be at the helm. On 5 May 2004, an
artwork crossed the symbolic $100
million threshold for the first time when Sotheby's sold
Picasso's Le Garçon à la Pipe Pablo (1905) for $104.6 million in New
York.
In 2007 Sotheby's posted a 50% increase in its turnover and its
growth was steaming ahead as 2008 unfolded. However, the collapse
of Lehmann Brothers on 15 September
heralded the start of a major financial crisis. Ironically, on the
same day, Sotheby's went ahead with its famous Damien Hirst sale Beautiful Inside My Head
Forever in London
generating $73 million.
2009 – 2019: major restructuring
Although the 2009 art market was impacted by the financial
crisis (-60%), Sotheby's Fine Art turnover remained higher than its
pre-2004 figures. However, it clearly decided to reduce its volume
to a relatively stable 11,000 to 15,000 lots sold per year.
This strategy quickly paid off and Sotheby's recorded the best two
years in its history in 2013 and 2014, with each year boasting a
result above the $100 million
threshold.
Between 2016 and 2019, Sotheby's started to seek a new
equilibrium, notably via the development of online sales. In
2017, the company attempted to boost its online sales channel by
waiving buyer fees... only to reintroduce them the following year.
Works by Basquiat, Modigliani and Monet – which marked these four
years – were all sold in traditional auction rooms.
This is no longer the case in 2020: on 29 June Sotheby's managed
to sell its star lot, Francis
Bacon's triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of
Aeschylus (1981), for $88.55
million (incl. fees) during a online sale broadcast on
Internet. Sotheby's clearly sees the future of Fine Art auctions in
this new format...
*Don't hesitate to contact our Econometrics
Department for your
requirements regarding statistics and personalized
studies: econometrics@artprice.com
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