Art Sales Fell by 12% Last Year, Art Basel and UBS Report Says

Gross sales within the worldwide artwork market declined 12 p.c in 2024, based on the Artwork Basel and UBS World Artwork Market Report revealed on Tuesday. The annual report, seen as probably the most dependable indicator of the artwork market’s dimension and well being, stated that gross sales had fallen for the second yr in a row.
“Decline in worth was pushed by cooling on the prime finish,” says the report, which describes 2024 as “a yr of continuous geopolitical tensions, financial volatility and commerce fragmentation.” Public sale gross sales of single works that fetched greater than $10 million fell by 39 p.c, the report says, and galleries with a turnover of greater than $10 million noticed gross sales fall 9 p.c.
“Folks have been extra risk-averse,” stated Clare McAndrew, the economist who wrote the report, in an interview. “On the availability facet, folks have been ready to see how issues panned out and held on. That impacted what got here on to the market.”
“Patrons have been taking a look at this unsure, unstable image, and needed to place cash into one thing that was extra liquid, or one thing that gave them earnings,” McAndrew stated.
The report — which is probably the most broadly cited survey of exercise within the notoriously opaque worldwide artwork market — estimates the overall worth of world artwork gross sales in 2024 at $57.5 billion, primarily based on publicly out there knowledge from public sale homes and survey responses from some 1,600 sellers.
Gross sales reached a peak of $68.2 billion in 2014, based on the report, however have been flat or falling since then, regardless that billionaire wealth has greater than doubled within the final 10 years, reaching a file $15.6 trillion. In that point, sales of other luxury goods have soared; LVMH, the world’s greatest luxurious conglomerate, posted annual turnover of about $88 billion final yr.
“There’s a lot wealth in several elements of the world that isn’t shopping for artwork in the intervening time,” McAndrew stated.
“The main target is a lot on the core people who find themselves already shopping for,” she added. “The expansion has to return with increasing the realm of curiosity.”
Final yr, gross sales declined in all the artwork commerce’s key geographic areas, the report says. The US retained its place because the dominant market, however turnover fell 9 p.c to $24.8 billion, owing partially, the report says, to “the political uncertainty surrounding the presidential election.” Regardless of “Brexit-related challenges,” Britain regained second place with $10.4 billion of gross sales, contracting simply 5 p.c year-on-year, based on the report. Artwork gross sales fell a hefty 31 p.c in China to $8.4 billion, its lowest degree since 2009, on account of “slower financial development, a continued property market stoop and different financial challenges,” the report says.
The one vivid spot within the report was a rise in exercise at cheaper price ranges.
The worldwide artwork commerce’s total variety of transactions grew 3 p.c in 2024 to 40.5 million, a peak, pushed by the post-pandemic enlargement of on-line buying and selling, the report says. Public sale gross sales of works offered for beneath $5,000, the report provides, a rise of seven p.c, whereas smaller sellers with turnover of lower than $250,000 reported a 17 p.c rise in enterprise, their second consecutive yr of development. The smallest sellers attracted the most important share of recent patrons, “highlighting the significance of smaller galleries in increasing the market to a wider viewers,” based on Artwork Basel and UBS.
Wanting ahead, the report stated 80 p.c of sellers anticipated secure or improved gross sales. Nevertheless, these upbeat responses had been compiled earlier than President Trump’s announcement final Wednesday of steep tariffs on almost all imports to america and the stock market falls that adopted. Though, for the second, art appears to be mostly exempt from U.S. tariffs, sellers are fretting about how these measures, and the financial turmoil they’re inflicting, will harm the worldwide artwork commerce.
“It’s unhealthy,” stated McAndrew, who emphasised that the consequences of tariffs remained unclear. “The expansion of the up to date market has been constructed round items having the ability to transfer simply throughout borders. It’s the worst attainable time for the artwork market to be hit.”
“There’ll nonetheless be the potential of reciprocal ones, and the harm they could do, extra usually, will nonetheless filter down,” she added.
The “geopolitical tensions, financial volatility and commerce fragmentation” that the UBS and Artwork Basel report recognized as suppressants in 2024 don’t look set to ease any time quickly.