Last week at Sotheby’s in New York, whispers of an art market recovery seemed to be vindicated. Following a 20-minute, six-way bidding war, Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–1916) hammered at $236.4 million including fees, making it the second-most-expensive artwork ever sold at auction. Oliver Barker, the tuxedoed auctioneer, hardly had a chance to congratulate the anonymous phone-bidding buyer before the room burst into applause.
If the market is now emerging from its slumber, it’s because of a renewed interest in older art. There’s growing faith that the worth of historical artists is more robust than the value generated by the boom in “ultra-contemporary” art that began during the Covid-19 pandemic and petered out a couple years later. Many works by young artists that vastly outperformed on the secondary market then, sometimes selling for seven figures, have since failed to resell at auction. And so, what’s new is out — and what’s old is cool again.
