ART BIZ | 100 Priciest Art Sales at Auction

Pablo Picasso, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust
Sold at Christie's auction in 2010 for $106.5 mil.

Artsy has recently posted a truly interesting interactive chart showing, year by year, the most expensive art sold at auction.

Often we don't know what a buyer paid for a piece of art. Only at auction is the process of buying and selling in the open.

The chart shows each sale, by year, with the price of the art. It documents a shift in buying from the Impressionists to Post-War and Contemporary Art.

A few things stand out like a sore thumb:

• The artists are 98 percent male.
• Of the art works, only 8 percent are by living artists. 
• Of the art works, 83 percent were sold via Christie's and Sotheby's.
• Three out of four artists were born in Western Europe or the USA.