jack-tilton

Art World In Major Slump

cityfile · 11/20/08 07:49AM

It's official: The art market has crashed and just like with real estate, expensive artworks are now worth considerably less than their owners paid for them. Shares of Sotheby's, worth $50 a year ago, have fallen to $9, and the auction house is now planning to let staff go—or, as CEO William Ruprecht puts it, "we'll be resizing our organization." Previously white-hot artists are finding that collectors are no longer fighting to pay millions for their pieces, although it's hard to feel too bad for anyone who's ever sold a canvas daubed with paint for seven figures.