Throughout the spring, celebrated artists with strong ties to the Hammer Museum at UCLA donated works to support the creation of a new Artist Fund, which will directly support the museum’s pioneering exhibition program and work with emerging artists. Offered during our Evening and Day Auctions of Contemporary Art, Artists for the Hammer Museum featured works by artists including Mark Bradford, Rashid Johnson, Charles Gaines, and Mark Grotjahn. A highlight of the group was Bradford’s Scratch Pink, an exceptionally vibrant example of the artist’s mixed media paintings from 2018, which achieved $3 million. All 40 donated works were sold, together achieving $12.4 million.

JUNE
Never-before seen at auction, a prime example of Claude Monet’s Nymphéas realized £23.7 million / $29.8 million – among the highest prices ever achieved at auction in Europe for an Impressionist painting. Sotheby’s sold 13 works by Monet this year, for a grand total of $228 million.

At €11.5 million / $12.9 million, the Marceau Rivière Collection achieved the highest total for any private collection of African Art in Europe. The two sessions saw several records along the way, first and foremost for a Baule mask, which made the third highest price ever for an African mask, as well as world record prices achieved a Dan spoon and a Yaure mask.

Our sales of Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art were highlighted by the Guy and Helen Barbier Family Collection, including Bhupen Khakhr’s landmark Two Men in Benares from 1982 that established a new auction record for the artist at £2.54 million / $3.2 million.

JULY
Collector Miles Nadal acquired the 1972 Nike Waffle Racing Flat ‘Moon Shoe’ for $437,500 – more than two times the previous world auction record for any pair of sneakers – from our online-only auction of The Ultimate Sneaker Collection, held in collaboration with streetwear marketplace Stadium Goods. One of only a handful of pairs known to exist, the present “Moon Shoe” is one of the most significant artifacts in the history of Nike’s multi-billion dollar athletic brand.

On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, three original NASA videotape recordings of that historic event sold for $1.82 million in our New York auction dedicated to Space Exploration. This result is more than 8,000 times the price paid for the tapes at a government surplus auction in 1976 by then-NASA intern Gary George.

Sotheby’s set a world auction record for an English watch, when George Daniels’ legendary Space Traveller I rocketed to a sky-high £3.6 million / $4.6 million in London – over 30 times the price set by the watch 31 years ago. Daniels completed the watch in 1982 to commemorate the 1969 American moon landing, an event that left a great impression on his life.

@sothebys reached 1 million followers on Instagram – the largest audience in the auction industry.

AUGUST
Throughout the summer, we welcomed visitors to our New York galleries for Treasures from Chatsworth: a rare exhibition in the United States of works from the fabled Devonshire Collection, held at historic Chatsworth House in the United Kingdom. More than forty masterworks were selected for the exhibition to represent the remarkable breadth of the Devonshire Collection – fine art from Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt van Rijn to Lucian Freud, furniture and decorative objects from the 16th century to 21st-century design, and exceptional jewels, costumes, and archive materials commemorating historic occasions were all on view.

SEPTEMBER
A group of 14 artists joined Ugo Rondinone in donating works for Stop Bladder Cancer, a benefit auction within our Contemporary Curated sale in New York, which raised funds for critical research for bladder cancer. Rondinone was diagnosed with high-grade bladder cancer in May of 2017 and has championed research efforts since.

We held an online-only auction dedicated to nearly 220 iconic pieces by fashion’s most discreet designer, Martin Margiela, all assembled over more than 20 years by a single private collector. The sale was highlighted by an asymmetrical grey woollen coat from Martin Margiela’s Spring-Summer 2006 show, which sold for £32,500 / $36,000.

OCTOBER
The two-day, ‘white-glove’ (100% sold) auction of the personal collection of the late husband and wife designers Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne achieved an outstanding €91.3 million / $101.5 million in Paris – four times its high estimate, and the highest total for a private art collection sold in France in the last 10 years. The collection was led by a monumental and unique Rhinocrétaire (“Rhinodesk”) from 1991 that realized €5.4 million / $6 million.

Banksy’s Devolved Parliament, a derisive portrayal of The House of Commons reduced to an assembly of parliamentary primates, captured headlines around the world when it sold to applause for £9.9 million / $12.1 million, shattering the artist’s auction record and leading our Contemporary Art Evening Auction.

A new auction record for any spirit was set at Sotheby’s London when The Macallan 60-Year-Old 1926 soared to £1.5 million / $1.9 million, far surpassing its pre-sale estimate of £350,000-450,000. This “holy grail” of whiskies was the star of a sale of more than 460 bottles of Scotch whisky from the collection of a private American Connoisseur, put together over some 20 years.