Sotheby’s

History

2022: Disqualification of Russians from bidding amid Russia's special operation in Ukraine

On March 30, 2022, amid Russia's special operation in Ukraine, it was announced that Sotheby's auction house would disqualify Russians whose main source of income is associated with Russia from bidding. A similar decision was made by the German auction house Ketterer Kunst. Christie's has not yet imposed a ban, but announced additional checks against Russians, Transparency reports.

2021

NFT sales revenue reached $100 million. Launching Sotheby's Metaverse

In 2021, NFT mania went beyond the crypto industry and attracted players in the traditional market. Auction house Sotheby's said in a report by The Block that it made $100m from the sale of the NFT in 2021. Sotheby's noted that 78% of NFT bidders were newcomers to auctions, and more than half were under 40. Given the current trend, Sotheby's also launched its own NFT platform called Sotheby's Metaverse.

Start accepting cryptocurrency as payment

In early May 2021, Sotheby's auction house announced that it would begin accepting cryptocurrency as payment at the upcoming auction of the painting by street artist Banksy "Love is in the Air."

The 90 by 90 cm painting is a symbol of peaceful protest. The canvas, made with spray paint and oil, shows a man throwing a bouquet of flowers into the air. The painting was signed by Banksy himself and dated May 6, 2005. Love Is in the Air was first painted in 2003 on a security wall in Bethlehem separating the city under Palestinian control from the rest of Israel.

Sotheby's auction allowed cryptocurrency painting to be paid for the first time

According to experts, the approximate cost of Banksy's painting is from $3 million to $5 million. At the May 12 auction, the purchase can be paid cryptocurrency Bitcoin for or Ethereum through Coinbase Commerce, the organizers said. Bets, however, will still need to be made in dollar terms.

The organizers of the auction noted that the emergence of the cryptocurrency payment function allows you to rethink, as well as expand the capabilities of the auction house. In recent months, with growing demand for digital art and the NFT, the art world has begun to lean toward adopting cryptocurrency. Artist Mike Winkelman's digital work "Every Day - First 5,000 Days" sold in March 2021 for nearly $70 at Christie's, the first major auction house to offer digital work with the NFT.

This new payment mechanism, paving the way for further cryptocurrency adoption at Sotheby's auctions, continues Sotheby's series of experiments with new technologies, the auction house said in a press release. - The decision to adopt cryptocurrency through Coinbase Commerce marks an important step for auction house Sotheby's, which aims to continue to lead the fine arts market.[1]

1988: The first and only Sotheby's auction in Russia

It is customary to count the history of the domestic contemporary art market from the Sotheby's Moscow auction held in 1988, which exhibited more than a hundred works by classics of unofficial Soviet art: Ilya Kabakov, Dmitry Krasnopevtsev, Vladimir Nemukhin and 30 more authors who later became recognizable in the world art market. Then almost all the lots were sold. Prices for some of them reached hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2024 terms.

Despite this, international houses never again held auctions either in the USSR or in post-Soviet Russia. Domestic art lovers had to be content with annual pre-auction exhibitions in Moscow and, much less often, in St. Petersburg. Christie's and Sotheby's brought here top lots of their London and New York trades, but customers could fight for their favorite works on their own or through representatives only abroad.

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