Christie's sets new record with sales reaching US$8.4b

Christie's recently announced that its global sales reached US$8.4 billion in 2022, the highest annual sales total in art market history.

Guillaume Cerutti, chief executive officer of Christie's, said on Monday's online press conference, "In 2022, despite a challenging environment, Christie's has achieved our highest-ever global sales. Three factors explain this performance: the resilience of the art and luxury market, the remarkable success of several major art collections – including the unforgettable Paul Allen sale – and the expertise and hard work of our teams around the world."

In fact, Paul G. Allen's landmark sale achieved US$1.62 billion to become the most valuable collection sale of all time, five works sold over US$100 million.

In 2022, Christie's Hong Kong has achieved a total of HK$6.4 billion (US$820 million) for now, which is the third-highest on record exceeding pre-pandemic level.

In 2022, millennials represented 21 percent of Christie's total buyers globally, and 40 percent of new millennial buyers came from Asia.

The purchasing power of Chinese mainland ranked the second after Hong Kong in the Asian-Pacific region in 2022.

Early this March, Christie's Shanghai space relocated to Bund One, a historical building along the Bund.

"China is reopening. We are excited to bring more major previews to Shanghai. We will continue to utilize digital and social reach for our millennial audiences – many of our team are very active on own social media platforms," said Rebecca Yang, chairman of Christie's China.

According to Evelyn Lin, deputy chairman and co-head of the Department of 20th-21st Century Art-Asia Pacific, "Chinese contemporary art is very important to Christie's and we are watching the market closely. Blue-chip artists remain strong in the market, for example, Zeng Fanzhi and Zhang Xiaogang, and we are committed to supporting these established artists, while also watching out for new names and young, emerging artists."