Every November, the art world gathers in New York for a week of auctions that decides, in a handful of evenings, how much the most expensive paintings on the market are worth. This year the week includes a Van Gogh that could break his auction record, and a Klimt and a Kandinsky each estimated at up to $80 million. If you have ever wondered what actually happens on one of these nights, here is how it works.
Day sales and evening sales
The major houses, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips, split their sales into two kinds. Day sales handle the bulk of the material, often hundreds of lots at more modest prices. Evening sales are the showpieces: a few dozen carefully chosen works, the highest estimates of the season, and a room full of collectors, advisers, dealers and press.
Sales are grouped by period. You will see names like “20th Century Evening Sale” or “Modern Evening Auction” for Impressionist and modern art, and “21st Century” or “Contemporary” sales for work made since the Second World War. Single-owner sales, built around one collection, are often the most glamorous of all.
Weeks of viewing
Before any of this, the works go on public view, usually for a week or more, and anyone can walk in for free. Christie’s shows its lots at Rockefeller Center. Sotheby’s now holds its New York sales in the Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue, the former home of the Whitney Museum. Seeing a $60 million painting at arm’s length, without a museum ticket, is one of the great free experiences in New York.
In the room
On the night, the auctioneer stands at a rostrum at the front of the room. To one side runs a long bank of specialists on telephones, each speaking to a client somewhere in the world. Others take bids online. In the seats, bidders hold up numbered paddles, though the biggest players are often absent, bidding through an adviser or a phone.
Each lot opens below its low estimate and climbs in increments set by the auctioneer. A very expensive picture can take ten minutes or more as two or three bidders trade offers, and the auctioneer’s job is partly theatre: pausing, joking, coaxing one more bid out of a hesitant phone. When the bidding stops, the hammer falls and the room often applauds.
Hammer price and the “with fees” price
The price at which the hammer falls is not what the buyer pays. On top of it comes the buyer’s premium, a percentage fee charged by the auction house, which is tiered so that it shrinks as the price rises. The figures you see in headlines are almost always the price including fees, which is why a painting knocked down at, say, $50 million is reported as selling for a noticeably higher sum.
Estimates, reserves and guarantees
Every lot carries a published estimate, a range the auction house expects the work to sell within. Most also have a confidential reserve, the minimum the seller will accept. If the bidding fails to reach it, the work is “bought in”, meaning it goes unsold.
Many big lots are now guaranteed. The auction house, or an outside investor, promises the seller a minimum price whatever happens on the night. When a third party provides that promise, it usually takes the form of an “irrevocable bid”: a commitment to buy the work at a set price if no one bids higher. This year’s Kandinsky, Betonte Ecken, has such a backing at a level above the artist’s current record, which is why a new record is widely expected.
What to watch this week
The headline lots are Gustav Klimt’s lakeside landscape Litzlbergkeller, the Kandinsky, and the Van Gogh at Sotheby’s. Further down the price scale there are stories with more surprise in them, like the Georgia O’Keeffe found in an East Village closet. Our full guide to the November sales has the rest.
Results are posted online almost as soon as the hammer falls, and most evening sales are livestreamed on the auction houses’ websites, so you can watch the bidding as it happens from anywhere.