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WD_159/ 2005
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Works on paper: Drawings 2 | | Medium: | oilstick on paper | | Size (inches): | 25 x 19.9 | | Size (mm): | 640 x 510 | | Catalog #: | WD_0159 | | Description: | Signed, date and copyright in pencil on the reverse.
When the gavel comes down, London rules the art world - Wednesday, August 10, 2005.
London overtook New York to become the world's biggest art auction centre in the first half of the year, with $854-million (U.S.) of sales, reported Artprice.com, a French data service.
London racked up a 38.2-per-cent share of the $2.23-billion of fine art sold by Sotheby's Holdings Inc., Christie's International and other houses between Jan. 1 and July 18, Artprice said in an e-mailed report. New York sales in the period totalled $833-million or 37.3 per cent of the total, which rose 10.2 per cent from a year earlier, it said.
"This increase is essentially due to the spectacular ascent of the U.K. market, which has over the years become the most dynamic epicentre of the global art market," said Artprice, whose headquarters are in Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or, France.
One or two big pictures can put a city ahead in the auction stakes. London last topped New York in 2002, when Canadian newspaper magnate Ken Thomson paid £49.5-million pounds ($107.3-million Canadian at current exchange rates) for Rubens's Massacre of the Innocents, according to Artprice.
For 2004, New York had a 46-per-cent share of global auction sales and London had 27 per cent, according to Artprice. The U.S. city's total was swelled last year by a Picasso painting that raised more than $100-million (U.S.).
New York has the biggest sales of impressionist, modern and contemporary art. London is the No. 1 market for Old Master paintings -- its last sales were in early July, showing up in Artprice data -- and has a diversity of sales from Islamic to British, Irish and Asian art that pushed it ahead in the first half.
Even after the terrorist attacks last month, a Canaletto painting of Venice sold for £18.6-million at a London auction, breaking a record for the 18th-century Italian artist.
France's market share was 5.7 per cent and Italy's was 3.4 per cent, Artprice said.
© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc.
-www.theglobeandmail.com
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