While finding the perfect luxury home can be time-consuming, buyers have a plethora of publicly available sales data to help them assess the particular market they are interested in. When it comes to high-end art, however, the market is famously one that is closely guarded, with fewer data sets available to the public, which has given rise to an industry of advisers, dealers, and other experts. For the uninitiated, entry into this world can feel daunting. Fortunately, a handful of publicly available art market reports provide hard data and important context that can be helpful for anyone contemplating the purchase of investment-grade art.
Foremost is the annual Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report. The latest edition, released in March 2024, provides the broadest assessment of the current global art market and is considered the most reliable. According to the report, the global art market totaled US$65 billion in 2023. This figure, which includes sales at auction and through galleries, is slightly below 2022, but still above pre-pandemic levels. The U.S. remains the largest market for art in the world, accounting for 42% of all sales (US$27.2 billion). For the first time, China surpassed the U.K., becoming the second biggest national market; a 9% year-on-year increase brought that country’s total sales to US$12.2 billion. The report credits post-Covid demand and the return of art fairs to Hong Kong as fueling that dramatic growth.
Sotheby’s auction house has seen participation in auctions grow substantially since the start of the pandemic, largely due to the rise of online auctions and an increased focus on digital marketing. Year-end statistics show that the number of bidders increased 28% from pre-pandemic levels, in 2019. Last year saw an astonishing 11% growth in bidders from 2022, of which 44% were new customers. To meet increased demand, Sotheby’s now mounts 25% more auctions than in 2019, and offers many more items estimated at less than US$10,000. Interestingly, the luxury categories—watches, jewelry, and wine—fueled much of this growth and are now the biggest entry point for people interested in trying out the auction experience.
When buying real estate, the old maxim is that location is everything. For art, it is artists who power the market, and the most recent Sotheby’s Insight Report, published by the auction house in March and December 2023, identifies the 50 most bankable. While it is impossible to predict the future of the market with certainty, works by these artists have proven to be the most coveted over the past five years, and thus the most likely to maintain or increase in demand. All artists included in the top 50 today were born in the 19th and 20th centuries. Here are a few key takeaways for those considering investing in the high end of the art market.
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Sotheby’s International Realty - San Francisco Brokerage
“IT IS VERY TYPICAL FOR OWNERS OF HOMES WORTH US$10 MILLION AND HIGHER TO BE COLLECTORS”
Michael Carucci, executive vice president, Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty in Boston, Massachusetts
The Five: Picasso, Monet, Warhol, Basquiat, and Richter
The art market is a pyramid, with tens of thousands of artists at the base whose prices are extremely affordable but aren’t likely to increase in value. The top end is much more selective: fewer than 900 artists have sold works at auction for more than US$1 million over the past five years, and just five account for a third of the total market during this period. Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Gerhard Richter never go out of style. The first four are among the few whose individual works have surpassed US$100 million at auction.
Women ascendant
For most of recorded history, women were prohibited from becoming artists, and the few who overcame these restrictions were either ignored or relegated to second-class status, with little institutional support. As a result, they are underrepresented in museum collections, and were rarely the subject of career-making exhibitions. That is starting to change, as major museums focus more curatorial attention on female artists from all periods and the auction market realizes their potential. Leading the pack is the Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell, the first woman to break the US$10 million barrier at auction. She ranks at 17 in the top 50 by total sales, followed by Yayoi Kusama at 19, British painter Cecily Brown at 39, and Helen Frankenthaler at 47. Women have made tremendous gains in the market, but with just five represented in the top 50, there is still a long way to go.
