Christie's: 8% Of Contemporary Art Sales In 2021 Were NFTs

Christie’s International sold $7.1 billion of art during 2021, its highest annual in five years, with non-fungible token (NFT) auctions accounting for $150 million of that total.

What Happened: According to a Wall Street Journal report, Christie’s 2021 total is up 54% from 2020 and up 22% from the pre-COVID-19 pandemic 2019. The total sum can be divided between $5.4 billion in auction sales and $1.7 billion in privately brokered sales — the latter represents a 12% year-over-year increase and a 108% uptick from 2019’s sales level.

Christie’s was also responsible for the highest price sale of the year, the $103.4 million for Pablo Picasso’s 1932 “Woman Seated Near a Window (Marie-Thérèse),” which was acquired in May by an unidentified collector.

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What Else Happened: Christie’s also made history earlier in this year with the sale of Beeple’s collage, “The First 5000 Days,” as an NFT-based digital artwork. The two-week auction began on Feb. 25 with an initial $100 bid level before concluding on March 8 with a $69 million sale.

Since that auction, Christie’s sold $150 million worth of NFTs, or approximately 8% of its contemporary art sales overall.

As for its buyers, Christie’s said 35% of its bidders during 2021 were first-timers to the company with millennials accounting for one-third of that share. The company added that more than one million people participated on its nine social-media platforms to view some of its live stream sales this November from New York, and it plans to begin live stream sales from Shanghai in March to accommodate a growing Asian art buyers’ market: Christie’s sold $500 million in art in Asia, up 56% from 2020.

Photo: Christie's