Displaying items by tag: salesroom

Alexi Fung is the new managing director of the Bonhams Hong Kong branch, a post he will take up immediately at the auction house’s new One Pacific Place salesroom. With a focus on Asian 20th century & contemporary art, Fung has previously worked at auction houses in Hong Kong and Japan.

“We are delighted to welcome Alexi to Bonhams, particularly at this exciting time for the company,” Malcolm Barber, co-chairman for Bonhams Group, said in a statement.

After its Essl Collection sale on Monday kicked off the Frieze-week frenzy, Christie’s returned on Thursday night with its main event of the week.

Peter Doig’s first tropical painting led a carefully edited postwar and contemporary auction. The house tried to catch the prevailing mood favoring young artists—like the many being exhibited at this week’s fairs—and the German masters now on view in many of the British capital’s biggest galleries.

Still, the top lot was Doig’s “The Heart of Old San Juan,” dating from 1999, showing an emerald-green basketball court by the sea. The tranquil painting attracted some interest in the salesroom and sold for £4.56 million (about $7.26 million).

Christie’s and Sotheby’s have long dominated the auction market for fine art. Now Phillips, the world’s third biggest auctioneer of international contemporary works, is about to open a new flagship salesroom here that it hopes could help challenge that duopoly.

The company, with auction rooms in New York and London, plus offices in eight other cities, has moved its European headquarters from Victoria, near one of London’s main railroad stations, to a 73,000-square-foot building at 30 Berkeley Square, in the heart of the wealthy Mayfair district

Christie’s first-half sales increased by 9% thanks in part to its record postwar and contemporary art sale, the most expensive auction ever held. The sale, which took place May 15th in New York, garnered $495 million and set 23 new salesroom highs for artists including Jackson Pollock and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Christie’s brought in over $1 billion in total contemporary art sales.

Interest in postwar and contemporary art has increased significantly in the past few years. This year alone Christie’s saw a 52% rise in new clients bidding on contemporary works less than $200,000. The auction house’s second most lucrative category was impressionist and modern art, which fetched over $625 million during the first-half.

Christie’s releases its sales total twice a year. The auction house’s total first-half sales reached $3.6 billion.