[News Inside Companies] Gogh, Picasso, Kandinsky... What Kind of Company Is Sotheby's?

Started as a book auction in London in 1744
Auction of European aristocrats' collections in the 1950s
Popular as a 'social venue' for wealthy individuals

The representative work of Vasily Kandinsky, a Russian-born artist known as the "Pioneer of Abstraction," was sold at Sotheby's auction house for over 58.9 billion won. According to The New York Times, Kandinsky's 1910 painting "Murnau with Church II," which went up for auction on the 1st (local time), was sold for $44.9 million (approximately 58.96 billion won). This is the highest price ever recorded for a Kandinsky work at auction. The previous record was $41.8 million (54.88 billion won) in 2017. This piece was painted while Kandinsky was staying in Bavaria, Germany, and is considered a representative work marking the point when his artistic world transitioned to abstraction.

Kandinsky's 1910 work 'Murnau II with Church' Photo by AFP Yonhap News

Not only Kandinsky, but also "Sunflowers" by Van Gogh and "Balloon Dog" by Jeff Koons, Sotheby's, known as a world-renowned art auction house, originally started as a used book trading company. In 1744, British entrepreneur Samuel Baker, who founded the predecessor of Sotheby's as a book auction company, reportedly made a significant profit from auctioning books left by Irish politician John Stanley. Later, in 1917, the company moved from London's Strand to Mayfair, the center of the art world, where transactions became more active, leading to rapid growth.

Samuel Sotheby, who inherited the business, also focused mainly on used book trading, and the current Sotheby's is named after him. Sotheby's auctions of old documents and rare books continued until the 1950s.

November 18, 2021, Sotheby's auction site in New York. Photo by AFP Yonhap News

Then, in the 1950s, Sotheby's opened an office in New York, USA, and began conducting auctions targeting collections of European aristocrats. Sotheby's did not merely auction items but transformed the auction house into a kind of social venue, promoting it as an elegant gathering place for wealthy art enthusiasts.

In 1957, when Dutch banker Weinberger auctioned off artworks collected during World War II, including pieces by Van Gogh and Renoir, over 3,000 famous figures, including Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom, participated, marking Sotheby's rise as a global auction house.

At the 1958 Goldschmidt Collection auction held in London, celebrities from popular culture such as actors Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, and writer William Somerset Maugham attended, signaling the beginning of participation by public figures in auctions. In 1964, Sotheby's acquired the American auction company Parke-Bernet, gradually expanding its auction market stage globally. Sotheby's currently operates 80 offices worldwide.