WE don't know the identities of most of the buyers who made this a blockbuster week for art auctions, bidding up works by Rothko, Giacometti and Lichtenstein, among others, to eight and nine figures. "Les Femmes d'Alger (Version 'O')", a 1955 painting by Picasso, sold for US$179.4 million.
We don't know exactly where their money came from, or why they chose to spend vast amounts of it at auctions held by Christie's and Sotheby's.
But this much we do know: The astronomical rise in prices for the most-sought-after works of art over the last generation is in large part the story of rising global inequality.
At its core, this is the simplest of economic math. The supply of Picasso paintings or Giacometti...
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