A brief story about the history of the auction house, as well as its immediate projects

auction house Phillips de Pury & Co. known through the sale of works by contemporary artists, photographers and designers. What happened to Phillips in the past ten years, perfectly illustrates the vicissitudes of the art market of 2000's. Thanks to a boom in contemporary art auction house has made incredible strides, but when the price of "kontemporari" fell, he had hard times. Even so, its priority Phillips is not going to change.

The house was founded in 1796 by Harry Phillips (Harry Phillips), former Secretary of the first chapter at Christie's, James Christie (James Christie).

In 1999, Phillips acquired the French tycoon Bernard Arnault (Bernard Arnault), head of the holding company LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy). It was then in the directories bidding auction house has begun to appear more and more works of modern art. In 2001, only 4 percent of works sold at Phillips, had been established actual artists, while the art of the XIX century was 32 percent, and modernist works - 44 per cent.

A year later the situation has been very different: "kontemporari" almost equal to the modernism (29 percent versus 30). The company's goal was to develop a new image, the less conservative than those of major competitors - the giants of the art market from Christie's and Sotheby's. But for that Phillips had to make sacrifices: in 2002 the number of lots put up for auction has declined sharply, and in connection with this annual revenues fell by 61.7 per cent. Return to the previous level of income (over $ 200 million per year) the company has only in 2007.

In 2002, the group LVMH sold its shares to Phillips to Simon de Pure (Simon de Pury) and Danielle Luxembourg (Daniella Luxembourg), who enthusiastically continued the work begun more at Arno. In 2004, the percentage of modern art, trade, amounted to 60,9! Soon the price of "kontemporari" increased sharply, and in 2007, the auction house was able to boast a significant increase in annual profits - as much as 137.6 percent. In that year, Phillips has sold a little over three thousand lots, and earned 241.8 million dollars.

6 October 2008 50 percent of the company acquired a group of Russia's Mercury . It was expected that it will strengthen the position of Phillips on "developing" markets and will assist in competition with Sotheby's and Christie's. At the same time, Mercury decided to minimize the risks, and so Phillips had to reduce the amount of guarantees provided by the sellers. In addition, at the request of Mercury was closed by the Cologne branch of the auction house.

Focusing on the least reliable segment of the art market, Phillips de Pury have lived through all the "charms" of the late art boom. The result of bidding, held on 14 and 15 May in New York, was not very impressive - "only" $ 10 million. But Phillips was not discouraged and return to the good old modernists do not want: on the contrary, auction house is going to "cheer up "market of contemporary art, staging a series of thematic auctions.

The first auction under the title Now: Art of the 21st Century ( «Now: Art of the XXI century") will be held September 26 in London. They will be submitted to 291 lot - works of art, photography, furniture. In the catalog of the auction of work by unknown artists (with the estimate: a few hundred pounds) side by side with the works of art-market mega-stars such as Damien Hirst (Damien Hirst). At the auction will be available even cheap imitation "diamond skull", the artist Peter Fassi (Peter Fuss). The work, which is called "the amusement of the Lord", is estimated at 6-8 thousand pounds.

Material prepared Yulia Maximova, AI

Source: artprice.com , artinvestment.ru