All posts tagged: Bonhams

Diane Keaton Auction Includes Art, Fashion, and Personal Treasures

Diane Keaton Auction Includes Art, Fashion, and Personal Treasures

Published by José Betancourt

The personal treasures of Diane Keaton, the commanding actress who established a significant sartorial presence and wore hats as well as a milliner could ever dream, are the subject of an in-person auction in New York and three online sales courtesy of Bonhams. Exhibitions of the lots on offer will be mounted in Los Angeles, starting May 5, and New York, beginning May 29. “Diane Keaton: The Architecture of an Icon” is the main event, at the US flagship of Bonhams on West 57th Street on the evening of June 8. The three online auctions will relate to “The Diane Keaton Collection” with subtitles including “Tailored & Timeless,” “At Home with Diane,” and “Chapters of an Edited Life.” “Diane Keaton was not simply a collector, but a consummate editor,” said Anna Hicks, Bonhams Head of Private & Iconic Collections, US, in a press release. “Each piece—whether it be art, fashion, decor, or personal object—was chosen by her with remarkable precision and clarity, reflecting an innate instinct for composition, restraint, and meaning.” Dorrie Hall, Keaton’s sister, said, …

Competition in Auction’s Middle Market is Fierce, and Growing Fiercer

Competition in Auction’s Middle Market is Fierce, and Growing Fiercer

Published by José Betancourt

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday. A former executive at a global auction house recently shared an interesting statistic with me about what the industry calls the “middle market.” This term means different things to different houses, but generally it refers to lots valued below $1 million and collections below $5 million. This source told me that, across all auction houses, lots below $1 million attract (conceptually) 10 percent or less of the attention, 50 percent of the hammer price, and 70 percent of the earnings. But the problem that auction houses are facing, at all price bands, but particularly this one, is squeezed margins, as overhead rises and sellers demand a greater share of the profits.  Related Articles Complex financial deals—like enhanced hammers, where a seller gets a percentage of the buyer’s premium, or guarantees, where auction houses promise to pay a minimum amount no matter how much the object or collection sells for—used to be limited to the top …

Salvador Dalí’s Largest Painting Heads to Auction

Salvador Dalí’s Largest Painting Heads to Auction

Published by José Betancourt

This month, Salvador Dalí’s largest ever painting, a monumental stage set measuring 65 by 100 feet, will head to auction in Paris. The work, which comes from a private collection, will lead Bonhams’s fourth annual sale dedicated to Surrealism on Thursday, March 26. The work is estimated to bring €200,000 – €300,000 ($236,000–$350,000). Dalí designed the 13-panel set for “Bacchanale,” a Surrealist production—for which he also wrote the libretto—created for the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo. Key collaborators included Léonide Massine, choreographer and director of the Ballets Russes; Coco Chanel, who designed some of the costumes and accessories; and Prince Alexandre Schervachidze, legendary scenographer for the Ballets Russes, who oversaw production of the set at the company’s workshop in Monte Carlo. Related Articles The ballet had its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in November of 1939. Because of the war in Europe, Dalí was unable to attend himself, and Chanel refused to send her costumes. Nevertheless, it was well received and subsequently toured the US. The artist most synonymous with Surrealism in …

Bonhams Opens New 57th Street Headquarters With Cuban Art and Sports Exhibitions

Bonhams Opens New 57th Street Headquarters With Cuban Art and Sports Exhibitions

Published by Jenni Sidey

Bonhams has a new front door in New York, and it is not subtle. This week, the 232-year-old auction house opened its new U.S. headquarters at 111 West 57th Street, inside the restored Steinway Hall and beneath the pencil-thin tower that now looms over Billionaires’ Row. The move shifts Bonhams from its longtime Madison Avenue base into a 42,000 square foot space that feels more like a cultural center than a back-office salesroom. The building does much of the talking. Visitors enter through an 80-foot glass atrium that opens onto a grand staircase, a triple-height gallery, and two sizable auction rooms. The historic Steinway Rotunda has been restored and folded into the mix, giving the place a sense of old New York glamour without feeling dusty. It is polished, vertical, and designed to be seen from the street, encouraging passersby to look in and actually glimpse what is happening. Related Articles Bonhams is using the opening month to show off more than square footage.  In the atrium, an exhibition titled “Striking a Chord” brings together …

Bonhams’ New HQ Opens, Lubaina Himi Wins PAMM Prize: Industry Moves

Bonhams’ New HQ Opens, Lubaina Himi Wins PAMM Prize: Industry Moves

Published by Jenni Sidey

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday. Happy Wednesday! Here’s a round-up of who’s moving and shaking in the art trade this week. Bonhams Opens New US Headquarters in Midtown Manhattan: The auction house’s official opening of its new 42,000-square-foot flagship at Steinway Hall comes with a month-long slate of exhibitions and cross-category sales. Bortolami Announces Representation of Nathlie Provosty: The New York gallery will present new works by Provosty at the Campus in Hudson, New York, and at Art Basel in Switzerland, both opening this June. Philadelphia Museum of Art Names Katherine Anne Paul Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art: From 2002 to 2008, Paul served as an assistant and associate curator at the museum. She was most recently at the Birmingham Museum of Art, where she has served as curator of Asian art since 2019. Lubaina Himid to Receive PAMM Fund for Black Art Acquisition Prize: The Turner Prize–winning artist’s painting Horn Seller (2023) will be acquired by PAMM. Himid …

Public Television is .3 Million Richer, Thanks to Bob Ross 

Public Television is $1.3 Million Richer, Thanks to Bob Ross 

Published by José Betancourt

Three paintings by beloved artist and television personality Bob Ross sold for as much as thirteen times their high estimates at a Bonhams Skinner auction on Tuesday, netting $1.3 million for American Public Television (APT). The paintings come from a group of thirty that Bob Ross, Inc. consigned to Bonhams in October, with a total estimated value of up to $1.4 million, to benefit APT and PBS stations nationwide. The Ross works came to the block as part of the sale “Americana: Crafting a Nation: Art, History, & Legacy” that included paintings, folk art, and other historical artifacts. The sale, at Bonhams Skinner’s auction room in Marlborough, Massachusetts, totaled $2.4 million, exceeding its presale high estimate of $1.6 million, and also included works by John James Audubon and Arthur Wesley Dow, as well as a painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware after the famed canvas by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. Related Articles Leading the sale was Ross’s Change of Seasons (1990), which was painted live on air during his popular “Joy of Painting” television series, which …

Bonhams Posts 0 Million in 2025 Sales as It Navigates a Market Reset

Bonhams Posts $970 Million in 2025 Sales as It Navigates a Market Reset

Published by José Betancourt

Bonhams ended 2025 with $970 million in global sales, a headline number that, in another year, might have been received as unambiguously good news. Instead, it arrives trailing a thicket of context: a widely circulated Financial Times report on a £213 million pre-tax loss, a change in ownership, and renewed scrutiny of how auction houses account for downturns during a softening market. Still, the topline result marks one of the strongest sales performances in Bonhams’s recent history, bolstered by growth across regions and categories and by an expansion strategy that, while echoing moves made by Sotheby’s and Christie’s, including an focus on private sales, diversified categories, and deeper digital engagement, differs in emphasis, with Bonhams anchoring itself in breadth and middle-market depth rather than trophy-dominated, evening sale model. According to figures released by the house, Bonhams attracted buyers from 133 countries in 2025 and maintained operations in 24 markets worldwide. Sales were spread across more than 65 categories, with particularly strong results in fine art, luxury goods, and collector cars. The year’s top lot, a 2020 Bugatti Divo …

A Collection of Oscar Wilde-Related Material Heads to Auction

A Collection of Oscar Wilde-Related Material Heads to Auction

Published by José Betancourt

On February 18, Bonhams auction house in London will hold a sale of books, photographs, and ephemera related to the Irish writer Oscar Wilde’s life and work. The items come from the holdings of former antiques dealer and bibliophile Jeremy Mason, who has been collecting Oscar Wilde memorabilia for the last 60 years. An aesthete and dandy, Wilde was nearly as famous for his wit as for his writing, which includes poems, plays, and a single novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1890. In the early 1890s he made a name for himself as a dramatist with works like Salomé (published 1893, performed 1896) and The Importance of Being Earnest (performed 1895, published 1899). Related Articles Wilde’s success, however, was short-lived: In 1895 he was convicted of “gross indecency” for his homosexual liaisons and sentenced to two years of hard labor. Following his release he moved to France, where he died in 1900 at the age of 46. Highlights of the Bonhams sale will include an 1891 copy of The Picture of Dorian …

Bob Ross Paintings Go to Auction to Raise Money for Public Broadcasting

Bob Ross Paintings Go to Auction to Raise Money for Public Broadcasting

Published by José Betancourt

Three more paintings by PBS icon Bob Ross are going up for sale at Bonham’s at the end of the month, as part of a group of 30 such works being sold to raise money for the beleaguered public-broadcasting entity American Public Television (APT). ˆThe three works will be on offer in the “Americana: Crafting a Nation: Art, History & Legacy” sale in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on January 27, with estimates for the three reaching up to $155,000. Last year, Bonhams was consigned to sell 30 works by Ross, the Joy of Painting host whose status as the brush-wielding artist with improbably shapely hair was known far beyond the confines of galleries and museums. The high estimate for the group of the works at the time was $1.4 million, and subsequent sales have met with success: In November, three works by Ross sold for a combined $662,000 with fees, and then another work went for more than $1 million in a sale organized by trenchant comedian and TV news host John Oliver. Related Articles As chronicled …

Bonhams’ New HQ Opens, Lubaina Himi Wins PAMM Prize: Industry Moves

Bonhams Saw Significant Revenue Drop in 2024, In Line With the Big Three

Published by José Betancourt

UK-based auction house Bonhams saw its pre-tax loss jump almost 90 percent to £213 million ($286.3 million) in 2024, as revenue fell 9 percent to £176 million ($236.6 million), according to its most recent filings with UK’s Companies House, as reported by the Financial Times. (Financial filings released through Companies House, the UK’s rough equivalent of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, typically trail by one year.) The house saw impairment charges of £153 million ($205.5 million), driven by drooping cash flow forecasts. Impairment, in accounting terms, is “an unexpected deterioration in an asset’s ability to generate future economic benefits.” Related Articles The house noted in an email to ARTnews that the charge was to the equity owners’ investment, not cash losses, and that the charge was taken against the investment value held by the previous owners, private equity firm Epiris, who sold the house to European private credit manager Pemberton Asset Management in October. In effect, the impairment reflects a reduced assessment of the auction house’s ability to generate future profits, which lead Epiris …