Christie's - First Open: Post-War and Contemporary Art Online

Executive Summary

The "First Open: Post-War and Contemporary Art Online" auction, with a 77.70% sell-through rate, highlighted the art market's sustained interest in contemporary and post-war works. This auction showcased 115 successfully sold lots out of 148, gathering a total hammer price of £979,300 and achieving a cumulative value of £1,233,918 after incorporating buyer's premiums. The significant buyer's premium of £254,618 underscores the value added by the auction house's curation and expertise. An average price per lot of £10,729.72 speaks to the auction's focus on mid-range artworks, making high-quality art accessible to both new and seasoned collectors.

Key Insights

• Healthy Demand: The auction's strong sell-through rate indicates a robust appetite for post-war and contemporary art, reflecting both quality curation and collector enthusiasm.
• Mid-Range Focus: The average lot price suggests the auction successfully targeted the mid-range market segment, appealing to a broad spectrum of collectors.
• Selective Collector Interest: The variability in percent deviations from estimated prices suggests selective interest among collectors. Artworks by emerging artists or those with unique thematic or stylistic elements, like Kudzanai-Violet Hwami and Alan Uglow, showed strong performance, indicating a market open to novel and diverse expressions.
• Artistic Significance Over Market Expectations: The overperformance of certain lots, such as George Morton-Clark's "A Horse with No Horse", underscores the importance of artistic significance and collector recognition over pre-auction estimates. This suggests that artworks that resonate on a deeper level with collectors or that capture current cultural trends can outperform market expectations.