The spring season in Milan has always meant, before the pandemic, the perfect period for the most desired events like Salone del Mobile and the inaugurations of exhibitions in museums and galleries. Also, other protagonists like auction houses set their sales during this period. They opened up to the public the saloons of their beautiful palaces to show their exhibitions made by the works of art that would be sold at the auction. In fact, this week was friendly called “the art week”.

Unfortunately, even this year, it would not be possible to fully live this magic season extremely rich in cultural events and auctions. Nevertheless, the auction house managed anyway to bring forward the Italian art market.

The auction of Modern and Contemporary Art that took place in Milan during this last month were the ones of Christie’s and Sotheby’s of which we know the results, but we must mention also the local sale organized by Italian auction houses like Il Ponte, Cambi Aste, and Boetto.

The Christie’s auction called Reborn: Modern and Contemporary, fully managed by the Italian team of the auction house, has been carried out online from the 22nd of April till the 6th of May, with a total amount of 1,796,375 euro. It is interesting to notice how many paintings were sold at almost double of their higher esteem in this auction though by their specialist. Clearly, some of these works of art were made by famous and notorious artists like Boetti, Warhol, Pomodoro, Fontana, Afro, and Scipione. I would like to bring attention to a Mario Schifano painting 90x120cm entitled “Tutte stelle” with the esteem of 8.000 – 12.000 euro that has been sold at 75.000 euro.

Even the direct competitor of Christie’s in the art market, Sotheby’s has organized an auction of Contemporary Art, that has taken place in Milan on the 27th of May presenting 66 lots. Like its competitor, even in this auction, there was an important rise in the selling price concerning international Italian artists like Boetti, Schifano, Fontana, and Leoncillo. The peculiarity of this auction has been the presence of some artists like Roman Opalka (picture displayed) and On Kawara that have considerably overcome the esteems expected. The first one has achieved the auction record with 1.222.500 euro and the second, with a starting esteem of euro 200.000 – 300.000, was sold for 532.800 euro.

During this difficult and little profitable period for the art market, both auction houses, with different ways and methods, have contributed to improve and to help the rise step by step of the lifestyle in Milan. Now we have just to wait until the autumn season to discover other magnificent and stunning works of art that will be exhibited and sold during the next auctions.