See Who Broke Pablo Picasso’s Winning Streak at Auction

Despite losing his title at auction, Picasso remains on top in one other category.

Spanish painter Pablo Picasso in Mougins, France, in 1971. Courtesy of RALPH GATTI/AFP/Getty Images.

Each month, the artnet Price Database tracks the most popular artists at auction, record-breaking works, and trends on what and how to collect. From Pablo Picasso’s enduring appeal to auction results that matter, we find what people are searching for, and why.

Read on for five findings, including the top three selling artists at auction, that will surprise you from the Price Database for the month of July.

Johnny Swing Murmuration, 2012 Sold for 112,500 USD (with premium) The Four Seasons July 26, 2016 Wright

Johnny Swing, Murmuration (2012); it sold for 112,500 USD (with premium) at Wright’s The Four Seasons sale on July 26, 2016.

1

Design duo Gartha and Ada Louise Huxtable broke Pablo Picasso’s streak as the most popular artist at auction in July. They had 224 works offered at a single sale, Wright’s The Four Seasons, which lasted an impressive 14 hours and featured furniture and objects from the iconic Four Seasons restaurant in New York.

2

Despite losing his title of the most popular artist at auction, Pablo Picasso remained the most searched artist on artnet for the month of July, while the top-searched decorative art specialty was Chinese works of art.

3b

Christie’s London came out on top with the highest sale total in July, achieving $104,414,551 with a sell-through rate of 65%. One stand-out work was Peter Paul Rubens’ Lot and his Daughters, which broke the record for the most expensive lot sold by their Old Masters Department at $58,002,713 on July 7.

4d

Peter Paul Rubens, Zhang Daqian, and Yan Baozhen were the three top-selling artists at auction in July. The artists brought in $61,720,200, $19,543,505, and $9,522,812, respectively.

5c

For the fourth consecutive year, artnet has partnered with the China Association of Auctioneers (CAA) to publish the Global Chinese Art Auction Market Report. It will provide an in-depth look at the auction market for Chinese art, which accounted for almost a third of the global art auction market in 2015. This must-read report will be published in the coming weeks—stay tuned!

The artnet Price Database offers the most comprehensive archive of auction results in the world, comprising over 10 million records dating back to 1985. Learn more about the database here.


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