You may use Instagram to post pictures of your Starbucks orders and your lunch, but social media savvy art dealers are using the photo sharing app to make sales worth millions. In 2015, Leonardo DiCaprio bought a painting after seeing it in Instagram and now a 2013 report shows that almost half of all art-buyers use the social network.
Christie’s top dealmaker Brett Gorvy learned just how powerful the app can be when he posted a picture of boxing champion Sugar Ray Robinson by Jean-Michel Basquiat. He posted the photo before taking a plane to Hong Kong and when he landed 16 hours later he had three messages from potential buyers who wanted to know if the painting as available. In fact, one of the interested parties immediately made an offer and the painting ultimately sold 2 days later for $24 million, which is triple the amount that the work fetched at auction in 2007.
Gorvy no longer works at Christie’s but he told Bloomberg that this incident “shows you the power of social media and the transformation of how people are buying.” The app allows potential buyers from all over the world to see what dealers have to sell and also allows dealers to be abreast of trends and get a sense of what collectors are looking for. The quickness of Gorvy’s Basquiat deal surprised others in the art industry. “That’s the highest number I’ve heard” said Simon de Pury, an auctioneer, referring to art sales via Instagram.