Art and antiques news from 2008

Christie’s have confirmed their position as the art market’s biggest business, announcing 2007 premium inclusive sales of £3.1bn ($6.3bn).

Having dramatically grown the auction market for Banksy at their mixed media Vision 21 sales, Bonhams are embarking on a new venture – a dedicated sale of Urban Art.

Auctioneers plan two £1m sales for 2008

‘Best ever’ year with $600m global sales

Sotheby’s have agreed to sponsor Tate Britain’s Duveens Commission, thereby allowing this site-specific sculpture commission to become an annual rather than a biennial event.

THE size of the world art market all but doubled between 2002 and 2006, according to the latest survey commissioned by The European Fine Art Federation.

Adams of Dublin were once again top of the Irish rooms posting a €19.4m (£14.6m) hammer turnover for 2007.

Scottish auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull started off their year on January 10 with the sale of the Deloitte Art Collection at The Royal Academy in London.

Summers Place Auctions have revealed plans for a three-tier selling strategy when they hold their inaugural sale of garden statuary and fossil decoration ‘in association with Sotheby’s’ in May.

Prize lots boost smaller salerooms

Outhwaite & Litherland have sold their Liverpool saleroom but retain their house clearance team.

Mall dealers ‘have nowhere to go’ if forced to leave

THE 102-year-old Welsh artist Stanley Lewis (b.1905) is trying to locate the current whereabouts of his painting of The Crosyceilliog Blacksmiths.

THE price of gold hit a 28-year high last week as rises in the oil price and inflation fears drove the gold fix to over $850.

For the first time, a trio of auction firms pulled clear of the field in Paris in 2007.

The extraordinarily elaborate diptych from c.1350-75, shown here, will be on show at The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House from January 10 to March 9.

Simon Chorley Auctioneers and Valuers of Gloucestershire have become the first art and antiques specialists to successfully apply for the new antiques road signs.

POLICE are on the lookout for a gang of thieves who stole a chest of antique coins worth over £150,000 from London auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb. They are believed to be the same people who targeted dealers in Hatton Garden late last year.

The emergence of a significant new discovery is a guaranteed crowd-puller in any sector of the art and antiques market.

In 1963, the daring actions of a 15-strong band of small-time London criminals captivated the world’s media. In 2007, it seems the Great Train Robbery still has the capacity to seize headlines.