Art market offers investors ‘escape’ from volatile stocks, Christie’s CEO says

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. The art market is about to face its biggest test since the November elections, with roughly $1 billion of works coming under the hammer in New York next week. Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips are together offering 295 works for a low-end estimate of $952 million combined, according to ArtTactic. That would mark a 2% increase over last year’s spring auction total, and dealers and art advisors say the final amount is likely to top $1.1 billion. Any gain would be a welcome change for a global art market that has been in decline for two years. Despite strong stock markets in 2023 and 2024, higher interest rates and inflation fears have put pressure on prices and sales. The auction houses and dealers blame supply. They say there just haven’t been any marquee sales, like the Paul Allen or Macklowe collections of years past, to attract bidders. And they say living sellers are holding onto their top works until prices rebound. Others say the economic weakness in China, war in Ukraine and slowdown in Europe have reduced the number of big collectors opening up their wallets for trophy works. The current tariff uncertainty and recession fears may cause collectors to further pause any big purchases. The headliner of the week is a Giacometti bronze bust being offered at Sotheby’s for between $70 million and $90 million. Sotheby’s is also selling a collection of 40 works from the private collection of famed artist Roy Lichtenstein. Christie’s is selling works from the collection of Louise and Leonard Riggio, who built the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain. The collection, which is expected to fetch more than $250 million, includes Mondrian’s “Composition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue,” likely to sell for over $50 million. It also includes a rare Picasso and Magritte. Christie’s is also selling works from the collection of Anne and Sid Bass estimated at more than $60 million. In an exclusive interview with Inside Wealth, Christie’s CEO Bonnie Brennan said collectors view art as a safe haven in an uncertain world, and sales are poised for a rebound. “I think art is always a place people come back to for a source of peace, of calm, of stability,” she said. “We’ve seen great interest this season because it is a bit of an escape.” Here are some of Brennan’s comments on the May sales and the state of the wealthy collector. On turmoil and tariffs “The last few weeks have been a real roller coaster. We are a market that thrives on stability, so these are times where we’re trying to navigate and give our clients assurance. One thing that works in our favor is that in times of volatility people look to tangibles. You see that reflected in the price of gold right now. We saw it in 2009 with the sale of Pierre Berge and Yves Saint Laurent’s collection, which at the time was the highest collection total ever. That was February 2009, a terrible time in the market. One thing we feel very confident about is that we have great material that’s fresh, that’s well priced. The market has said that’s what they’ve been waiting for. We hope there will be that flight to quality we’ve seen in the past.” On the impact of stock market volatility “We are sensitive to the markets. It would be inaccurate to say anything else. But we don’t see a direct correlation. We study the markets and the history of the way our markets interact. Sometimes we lag behind. Given the volatility in the financial markets, a lot of people feel safer in buying high-quality blue-chip [art] works. It’s a safer place to put their money. And so that’s why we feel very confident right now, particularly because we have such great blue-chip works. The global sales that we’ve had even since the tariff announcement early April, with great strength in Paris, gives me hope that if we can continue to fill the pipeline with great supply, we will continue to see demand.” On the problem of supply “The supply that we have this year is so strong. We didn’t have the same supply last year. We don’t have a problem with demand, it’s always been an issue of getting the supply to present to the global audience that we have. “January was a great sort of unlocking of supply. I was busier this January than I have been in the last 10 years. Then we went around the world for our sales, London in March, Hong Kong at the end of March, Paris in April — all of those sales centers, we saw a real excitement.” On the $250 million Len Riggio collection “Our business is not just about art, it’s about storytelling. And we feel so lucky that this season we have such great stories to tell. The biggest story of the season will be the story of Len and Louise Riggio. I love it because it’s an American story. It’s a story of a self-made man. He bought a college bookstore and he transformed it into what many of us, certainly our generation, remember as the greatest bookseller, Barnes & Noble. “Len was always in the second row of the sale room with his paddle raised. You never knew what he was going to bid on. We loved having him in the sale room. He would bid on a dinosaur. He would bid on a Mondrian. And that real passion as a collector — somebody wasn’t telling Len what to buy. He came and saw and bought what really spoke to him in the moment.” On the next generations of collectors “We have to build the next generation of collectors in order to keep our business going. We’ve been around for 250 years, but we have to sustain our future by making sure that young people feel that we are relevant to them. How do we do that? We do that in what we sell. Twenty-first century art is an example of that. We started that category several years ago so that we could celebrate the voices of younger artists, artists of color, underrepresented artists, female artists. That’s what young people told us. They wanted technology. They’re digitally native. They don’t want to talk to us, they don’t want to call, and they want to do everything in an easy, seamless way, on their phone. They want to bid online. So 80% of our bids last year came from online tools. “I think when we look at the young people, we have to educate them. We have to bring them in through digital art and interrupt their path with maybe some of the more traditional things. If we can encourage people to come here instead of Tiffany’s, say to buy a ring, and on that path to buying an engagement ring or an anniversary present or a watch, show them great prints by Lichtenstein or Warhol at a price point that they can afford. Those are the kernels, the seeds that build the garden of a future collector.” On the global map of demand “This May we will see strength from America. America is very much the backbone. Almost half of our business comes from [the U.S.]. But we have to stay focused on Asia. Asia is usually between 20% and 30% of our sales. I think we’re going to potentially see increased activity from Europe because of the strength of the euro and the pound against the dollar. There could be perception that things are a bit of a discount for them in the May sales.” On selling celebrity “One of the categories that’s been most surprising to me is musical instruments, the passion for guitars. Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler. All those sales introduced us to a new audience of buyers. I really see the power of celebrity, which has been in place for a long time, as an opportunity to do so many of the things we want to do. We want to introduce Christie’s to a broader audience. We want to be responsive to what younger buyers want.”

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.

The art market is about to face its biggest test since the November elections, with roughly $1 billion of works coming under the hammer in New York next week.