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Spring Art Auctions Surrounded by Crash Talk

Writers keep predicting implosion, but it might never come

By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff

Posted Apr 29, 2008 10:25 AM CDT
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(Newser) – It's auction season again in the art world, and Sotheby's and Christie's have put record estimates on dozens of paintings. Despite warnings in the media of an imminent crash, prices of fine art seem to be impervious to the global economic downturn. It's enough to make one writer at Slate wonder: Are observers of the art market rooting for a collapse?

"You don't usually see writers who cover, say, the price of wheat rooting for its decline," writes analyst Marion Maneker. Perhaps art writers aren't inherent bears, he says, just eager to be the first to identify the crash. But the transformations in the art world since the last downturn—especially the huge increase in buyers, which creates liquidity—means "this boom may end not with the bang that everyone expects, but a whimper."

Employees hold Lucian Freud's painting 'Benefits Supervisor Sleeping' during a photo opportunity at Christie's in London, Friday, April 11, 2008.
Employees hold Lucian Freud's painting 'Benefits Supervisor Sleeping' during a photo opportunity at Christie's in London, Friday, April 11, 2008.   (AP Photo/Akira Suemori)
A visitor walks past Andy Warhol's artwork Skull, left, and Ladies and Gentleman, during a pre-sale viewing in Moscow, Wednesday, April 23, 2008, before they are auctioned at Sotheby's in New York.
A visitor walks past Andy Warhol's artwork Skull, left, and Ladies and Gentleman, during a pre-sale viewing in Moscow, Wednesday, April 23, 2008, before they are auctioned at Sotheby's in New York.   (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Sotheby's employees pose for photographers by Fernand Leger's Cubist masterpiece Etude pour La Femme en Bleu at the auction house's offices in London, Monday Apr. 21, 2008.
Sotheby's employees pose for photographers by Fernand Leger's Cubist masterpiece "Etude pour La Femme en Bleu" at the auction house's offices in London, Monday Apr. 21, 2008.   (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
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