This summer, renowned art auction house Sotheby’s is launching a new program to highlight generative artists in the digital art field. The Gen Art Program will launch on July 26 and will feature two to three generative artists per year, beginning with the pioneering female digital artist Vera Molnar. Molnar, who began creating computer art in the 1960s, is widely cited as an influence for modern generative artists such as Dmitri Cherniak and Tyler Hobbs.
The Gen Art Program is powered by the Art Blocks Engine, a white-label generative minting infrastructure solution. Sales through the program will be fully on-chain and will be sold via a Dutch auction format, a first for the 300-year-old auction house. Bids will start at 20 ETH and will be incrementally reduced until the item is bought with one bid. All pricing will be in ETH, which Sotheby’s calls a nod to its crypto-native collectors.
Sotheby’s has continued to make its mark in the digital art world, recently hosting a series of successful NFT sales from its GRAILS collection. In June, it sold a number of NFT artworks, including Dimitri Cherniak’s The Goose, which sold for an impressive $6.2 million. In total, the auction house has brought in about $11 million from sales of GRAILS NFTs.
The Gen Art Program at Sotheby’s will launch on July 26 and will highlight two to three generative artists per year, said Sotheby’s. Sales through the Gen Art Program will be fully on-chain and will be sold via a Dutch auction format for the first time in the art auction house’s 300-year history.