‘The rich have got much richer’: why art sale prices are going through the roof

theguardian.com:

As a straight return on investment, it’s hard to beat “Untitled”, a 1982 work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, the African American street artist who became a global cultural icon, featuring a horned African mask on an abstract background across a canvas almost 5m wide.

In 2004, the painting sold for $4.5m. Back on the market 12 years later, it fetched $57.3m, then a record for a Basquiat. This week, it went under the hammer in New York for $85m (£68m), including fees, to a buyer from Asia.

The Basquiat sale comes amid extraordinary sums paid for artworks. Shot Sage Blue Marilyn by Andy Warhol – Basquiat’s rival and sometime friend – sold for a staggering $195m earlier this month, and three paintings by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne fetched a total of almost $166m on Tuesday.

The second sale this week of works in the Macklowe collection – a court-ordered auction as part of an acrimonious divorce settlement between octogenarians Harry and Linda Macklowe – realised $246m. Total sales from the couple’s remarkable collection, which included works by Warhol, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, came to more than $922m.

Another stellar collection of 12 works, including Monet’s Le Parlement, soleil couchant, that belonged to the late Anne Bass brought in $363m last week.

Sales of impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art at the main New York auction houses – Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips – have raised more than $2bn this month, reported art market research company ArtTactic. Sotheby’s New York sales topped $1bn this week alone, with strong activity from Asia and online.

At a time of geopolitical uncertainty, soaring inflation and falling stock prices, the art market is beyond booming. The explosion is fuelled by a