The CollectorAsia proves to be bright spot for auction houses in lacklustre year

Last year didn’t look like a parti­cularly memorable one for Christie’s in Asia. Sales at its main auctions in Hong Kong fell 10 per cent from the previous year to HK$5.2 billion (US$670 million). As it turns out, though, the region was a bright spot compared with other markets.

On February 9, Christie’s issued a statement summarising the privately held company’s full-year results, which showed a 27 per cent annual decline in global sales to US$5.4 billion. The United States was the worst-performing market, where sales slumped by more than half to US$2 billion from the previous year. Sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa had slid by about a third.

In Asia, however, total sales came to about US$1.6 billion, up sharply from the US$734 million recorded in 2015. This figure suggests that Asian buyers are spending a lot more in auctions outside Hong Kong and perhaps on private sales: transactions arranged by Christie’s but which the auctioneer keeps quiet about. These two categories have made Asian sales proportionally more significant than ever – a record 31 per cent of Christie’s total sales.

Looking at Christie’s results is always frustrating because the company reveals so little. We can expect more detailed figures when Sotheby’s, a listed company, announces its results at the end of this month.

Art market specialists have told The Collector they have witnessed a sharp growth in undisclosed private sales in Asia and that those sales account for more than half of secondary market transactions. Auction houses have increasingly marketed private sales in Asia, which doesn’t help with transparency. For example, The Collector would like to know how much Asia was boosted by events such as the “Loaded Brush” private sale in Hong Kong last November. For only the truly loaded, the Christie’s event featured paintings by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Mark Rothko, among others. Out of about 50 pieces, 35 were sold.