This article is taken from the August-September 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £25.
The art market enjoyed decades of growth, seemingly outpacing other sectors, especially in sales of contemporary art. Specific areas turned down, but one of the aspects of the current “correction” is the growth in value at the lower, sub-£20,000 objects market. There has also been something of a revival in Old Master paintings. So, given these mixed outcomes, has the market really dropped?
Well, in overall value terms, yes, but that headline figure is skewed by the large prices achieved for modern and contemporary art in 2020–2022.
That part of the market (which gets the headlines) has dropped for two reasons. First: widespread speculation has been skewered by rising interest rates. Investors have at last realised that the financialisation of art is a risky, short-term bet, not a realistic long-term game. The sums no longer add up for an investor who borrows money to buy art. Second: there are fewer masterpieces being offered.
It’s been said (for about the past two decades) that, outside of modern and contemporary art, we are in a “masterpiece market” — that the big guns only come out to buy great works of art, leading to a polarisation of prices (low prices for “sub-prime” work, then stratospheric prices for the few masterpieces that do emerge).
That occurred in July at Christie’s when the painting, Venice on Ascension Day by Canaletto, sold for £31.9m — an auction record for the artist. There were three bidders, quite good by today’s standards.
Elsewhere, some art fairs like Art Basel are now too big and too expensive. Commercial rents for bricks-and-mortar gallery spaces have increased, and the overheads for starting and maintaining small, up-and-coming galleries that promote interesting art leave many unable to sustain their business model.
The latest attempt to seduce clients sees Sotheby’s leasing the famous Breuer building on Madison Avenue: a brutalist construction designed by Marcel Breuer, which will be their new chi-chi HQ. However, they are also retaining most floors of their old York Avenue premises and it’s hard to see where this gamble will pay off.
Christie’s is sticking to the tried and trusted art sales methods. Orlando Rock, Chairman of Christie’s UK, believes the market is increasingly focused on narratives and storytelling, as it has been in the museum sector for years.
“We’ve seen an increase in Millennial and Gen Z clients who now comprise 31 per cent of our clients,” he notes, and “while the new generation may have different tastes from their parents, they remain motivated by the thrill of discovering something which speaks to them, which is the same motivation for collectors it has always been.”
The market for great art will revive, as it always does, but what should be done? First: remember why people want to buy art. Buying art is not necessary. It is not exactly like buying a luxury good: a Kelly bag or a Patek Philippe is a status symbol, inasmuch as a painting by a “brand” like Basquiat or Bellotto or Picasso or Rubens can also be. Yet art seems to represent something broader: perhaps suggestive of a particular worldview, a statement on some aspect of humanity, a distinct style or even an intellectual basis for understanding the world, whilst also signalling to others, “this is my world”.
Marina Phelan, of Charles Beddington Ltd, says, “Education is key and newer collectors need to be careful who they listen to — it is our job to work out how to reach them and educate them in our fields.”
Second, buying art should be enjoyable and convenient. Online bidding is certainly convenient — at Christie’s, 80 per cent of bids in the first half of 2025 were placed online, and buying at an art fair can also be enjoyable and convenient. Third, most auctions have lost the element of theatre. The whole point of an auction is to bring bidders together. The major auction houses have made it as easy as it can be not to attend auctions in person.
A rare disruptor in the art market, Loïc Gouzer’s “Fair Warning” auctions take the opposite approach, offering a single work at 5pm local time on Sundays. Only vetted bidders are allowed to join the auction, and, as there is only one work to consider each week, there is plenty of time to view it — if you can get to Montauk.
Finally, buying art has almost always involved a personal connection. People buy art for all sorts of reasons: for decoration; to be a part of a wider conversation and community; to build a legacy, perhaps as a serious collector of great art or to give to a museum or to throw light on a particular form of creativity. The structures that facilitate these impulses need developing. And they should be celebrated.
