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$181 Million for a Pollock. Is the Art Market Sending Signals?
Christie's May 18 auction was headlined by a $181M Jackson Pollock — the fourth highest price ever. A Rothko also went for $95.4M. A Brancusi fetched $107.6M (second highest ever for sculpture).
Those masterpieces were obvious outliers, but by the end of the evening, $1.1B in art had been sold.
Pollock died in 1956. The number of paintings he left behind is limited. Same for Rothko, Warhol, Basquiat. When one of these works trades at the top of the market, the remaining supply gets thinner and more contested.
That scarcity is what Masterworks was largely built around. Their acquisition committee — former specialists from Sotheby's and Christie's — uses over 3 million data points to identify which pieces to buy.
29 exits have delivered net annualized returns like 16.5%, 17.6%, and 17.8% on those held longer than a year, not including those unsold.
To join Masterworks, my subscribers skip the waitlist by clicking this unique link.
*Investing involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. See important Reg A disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.
I bought a coffee and the screen spun around to ask how much I wanted to tip. The lowest option was thirty percent. For thirty percent, I expect to be carried to the car and added as his emergency contact. All he did was turn around and hand me a cup. He watched me choose. I tipped, of course. I have never once beaten the screen.
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