This article is part of the Artnet Intelligence Report Mid-Year Review 2024. Our analysis of the first half of the year’s market trends provides a data-driven overview of the current state of the art world, highlighting auction results and trends, and spotlights the artists and artworks shaping the dialogue.

European Old Masters

Luis Meléndez’s Still Life of Artichokes and Tomatoes in a Landscape hammered for below its low estimate, but that was good enough for the eighth spot on this year’s top 10.

While four Old Masters fetched more than $10 million during the first half of 2023, just one did so in the same period this year. Possible causes include a dearth of quality consignments and the absence of ambitious Russian collectors. That said, major pieces that were fresh to market, with strong provenance, sold well. A Chardin still life led the way, selling for $28.9 million, a record for 18th-century French painting,¹ a category that has been hot of late, according to New York dealer Nicholas Hall. Hall points to the $2.5 million sale of a Greuze that had flopped privately more than a decade ago. “People,” he said, “are no longer bothered by the girl’s doleful expression or the dead bird, which I’m sure worked against it previously.” Meanwhile, the $3.1 million result for an Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun self-portrait reflects buyers’ ongoing drive to build diversity into their collections.²

—Brian Boucher

Impressionist & Modern

They say green doesn’t sell as well as red, but that didn’t stop Claude Monet’s Meules à Giverny (1893) from fetching $34.8 million and earning it the number three spot on our list.

Compared to the same period last year, not as many big-ticket lots in this category (covering artists born between 1821 and 1910) came to auction in the first half of 2024, reflecting some hesitation among sellers. But buyers had no hesitation shelling out for masterpieces. “While sellers might have felt more cautious,” said advisor David Norman, “when it came to really strong pieces that people wanted, I don’t think the buyers showed caution at all. If the supply of quality works is there, the demand will meet it.” The top 10 included two $20 million plus Claude Monet canvases and the first-place finisher, a $43.1 million René Magritte painting. Works by marquee names that were fresh to market also grabbed spots on the list, including a Francis Bacon that had never hit the auction block. One out-of-the-ordinary result was chalked up by a little-known house, Vienna’s im Kinsky, which sold the number-two lot, a Gustav Klimt that experts had long considered lost. In fact, a private Austrian was holding on to it.³

—Brian Boucher

Postwar

Andy Warhol’s 1964 Flowers sold for $35.5 million in New York in May at Christie’s, which showcased flower-themed works. Photo: Timothy A. Clary / AFP.

The list of top postwar lots reflects a shrinking market. Aside from the sale of Leonora Carrington’s Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945) for a record-smashing $28.5 million,⁴ a milestone for the under-sung Surrealist, there were few splashy results. “The majority of the lots hammered at or below their low estimates, which means they sold either to the guarantor or on a single bid above the guarantee,” the advisor Todd Levin said of the top 10. “That implies the auction houses were aggressively realistic about their presale auction estimates with themselves and their consignors.” While it set no records, a 1964 Andy Warhol Flowers painting earned the top price, $35.5 million, just barely edging out the first-place finisher for the first half of last year, a massive Louise Bourgeois Spider (1996) sculpture that made $32.8 million.⁵ A bright spot this time: While the Bourgeois was the lone lot by a woman in the top 10 last year, the Carrington was one of three this time, with two paintings by the ascendant Joan Mitchell making the cut.

—Annie Armstrong

Contemporary

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict (1982) at
Sotheby’s London in June. Photo: Justin Tallis/ AFP/ Getty Images.

Even in these uncertain times for art sales, some things still hold true, according to art adviser Ralph DeLuca. “The Basquiat market seems to be a somewhat unstoppable force,” he said. “Definitely an essential artist in the ‘I am a super-wealthy collector’ starter kit.” Seven of the top 10 results were for works by the artist, adding up to about $137.9 million—81 percent of the list’s total value. All three auction houses benefited from a Basquiat sale, with Phillips bagging the highest price, followed by Christie’s, then Sotheby’s. The only other artists represented are Felix Gonzalez-Torres (with a sculpture, a rarely seen medium on this list, from the collection of the late Rosa de la Cruz), Yoshitomo Nara, and Kerry James Marshall—all men, but not a single white one among them.

—Annie Armstrong

Ultra-Contemporary

Jadé Fadojutimi’s lush The Woven Warped Garden of Ponder (2021) far exceeded its estimate to fetch $1.99 million at Christie’s London, a hair over her previous record.

Demand for ultra-contemporary works (by artists born after 1974) has softened, but at the highest reaches of the market, they are still trading regularly for seven figures. The $3.2 million Avery Singer painting that led the ultra-contemporary field in the first half of 2024 would have finished sixth during the same period in 2023 (still not a bad result), when a $6.66 million Matthew Wong came in first. Half of these sales occurred at a Sotheby’s “The Now” auction, which the house introduced in 2022, at the height of the ultra-contemporary boom. It “broadened the scope of artists that we’re able to bring to market in an evening sale format,” said Sotheby’s vice president Lucius Elliott. “The sale reflects the evolving tastes of our time.” Indeed. Last year, Wong and Jonas Wood each had two entries on a Best-Seller List that boasted just one woman; this year, Wong is gone, and Wood has just one slot on a majority-female list that includes three Black women who have won acclaim for their figurative paintings: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, and Toyin Ojih Odutola. Taste changes, the market churns.

—Annie Armstrong

Photographs

Off the market for two decades, David Wojnarowicz’s Untitled (Face in Dirt) 1991, is from an edition of 10; most of the prints are owned by museums, a fact that drove the price far above its high estimate.

Some of the top prices in the category were for photographs by artists who work in photography, rather than specialists in the field—figures like Richard Prince and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. But examples by “pure” photographers, like André Kertész and Edward Weston, also performed exceptionally well. “The Kertész and the Weston are masterpieces,” said Alicia Colen, a director at the photo-focused Howard Greenberg Gallery, in New York. “It’s fantastic to see them achieving those high numbers, because whereas for older collectors, they might represent the Holy Grail, they are not necessarily the ones younger collectors gravitate toward.” A Diane Arbus that had been off the market for two decades beat her old record by 18 percent, and trophies by Cindy Sherman and Richard Avedon did well. But the most remarkable result was for a 1991 David Wojnarowicz, Untitled (Face in Dirt). Among his more coveted works, it brought $381,000, some 1,170 percent above its $30,000 low estimate.

—Brian Boucher