The story of the art market in 2025 is less about a single narrative arc than about divergence. On the one hand, aggregate figures remained below the post-pandemic peaks, and some segments continued to struggle. On the other, the year ended with a billion-dollar New York auction week, a Klimt portrait becoming the most expensive work of modern art ever sold at auction and a clear willingness among collectors to pay for exceptional material.
For collectors, 2025 was a year of segmentation rather than boom or bust: strength at the very top for truly rare works, pressure on more generic contemporary material and a selectively active middle market. The opportunities for 2026 sit squarely in that complexity.
From peak to plateau: Where the numbers stand
The Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report shows that global sales in 2024 fell to about $57.5 billion, down 12 percent year-on-year and marking a second year of decline after the post-pandemic surge. The high end—particularly the $10 million-plus tier—was the main drag on overall values, even as lower-priced segments proved more resilient.
By mid-2025, Artnet’s Intelligence Report painted a similar picture. Fine art auction sales for the first half of the year totaled $4.7 billion, an 8.8 percent drop versus the same period in 2024. The average price per lot fell to its lowest level in a decade, and the ultra-contemporary segment remained under significant pressure. At the same time, sales in the $1 million to $10 million band rose by nearly 14 percent, and Old Master auctions were up more than 20 percent, pointing to renewed confidence at certain established price points. In other words: the market was not uniformly weak. It was adjusting.
May in New York: A market that still works
The May marquee auctions in New York reflected this recalibration. Overall volumes were lower than in the exceptional 2021 and 2022, and not every work met its estimate, but there was solid bidding for pieces with good provenance and realistic expectations. Several houses leaned heavily on third-party guarantees, smoothing the risk for consignors and ensuring a high proportion of works found buyers.
Taken together with mid-year data, those sales suggested that while the speculative heat had come out of certain areas, the core mechanisms of the market—pricing, competition, the appetite for quality—remained intact.
Paris and the Fall fairs: Confidence with discipline
By October, attention had shifted to Paris, where the second edition of Art Basel Paris consolidated the city’s position as a central marketplace rather than a satellite event. Attendance was strong, and major galleries reported significant sales across 20th- and 21st-century material, including multiple seven-figure works by established names.
The mood in Paris, and later at other autumn fairs, could be summarized as “confident but discriminating.” Collectors were willing to act decisively when presented with compelling works, but there was little tolerance for over-ambitious estimates or mid-quality material piggybacking on big names.
November in New York: Records at the top, discipline everywhere
The clearest demonstration of this split-level market came in November. Christie’s kicked off the New York marquee sales with a double-header 20th-century evening auction that brought in $574.7 million ($690 million with fees), up more than 40 percent on the equivalent sale a year earlier, with a sell-through rate in the mid-90s and new artist records achieved.
At Sotheby’s, the inaugural New York Sales at the Breuer building totaled $1.17 billion—the strongest series since 2021—led by landmark single-owner collections. Gustav Klimt’s Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer) sold for $236.4 million, setting a new auction record for the artist and becoming the most expensive work of modern art ever sold at auction. Frida Kahlo’s El sueño (La cama) made $55 million, establishing a new benchmark for any woman artist at auction.
The week offered unmistakable proof that the very top of the market is still capable of extraordinary results when the material is rare, fresh and well-priced. It also underscored how selective that strength is: some resales fetched markedly less than their recent highs, and works without compelling stories or A-level quality met a cooler reception. Rather than contradicting the idea of a “rebalancing,” November refined it. The market is not closed—it is sorting.
What 2025 actually revealed about collector behavior
Looking across the year, a few patterns emerge:
- Selectivity increased. Collectors were consistently more willing to pass on works that felt average, even from celebrated artists, while competing robustly for pieces that stood out in quality or rarity.
- The middle and upper-middle segments remained active. Data from the $1 million to $10 million band, and the Old Master uptick, indicate that buyers remain comfortable at established price points when the works justify those levels.
- Single-owner collections played an outsize role. Collections such as Leonard A. Lauder’s and others brought fresh, well-documented works to market, and buyers responded accordingly—especially when those works had not been seen publicly for decades.
- Short-term speculation lost momentum. Segments that had been driven primarily by rapid price appreciation rather than connoisseurship showed the sharpest declines, particularly among the most recent “ultra-contemporary” names.
None of this is revolutionary; it is a return to first principles. But for collectors thinking about 2026, the implications are concrete.
What this means for collectors in 2026
A year of mixed signals can be dispiriting for sellers, but for thoughtful collectors, it creates useful conditions. The data and the season’s major sales together point to a market that: still rewards top-quality works with strong competition, applies more scrutiny to middling examples and offers less crowded entry points in areas that were overheated a few years ago. In that environment, the most productive question for 2026 is not “Is the market up or down?” but “How do I position my collecting within a more discriminating landscape?”
Here are six recommendations that apply across categories, regions and price points:
- Re-articulate the purpose of your collection. Use this moment to clarify what your collection is for: what ideas, periods or conversations you want it to embody. That clarity becomes a filter—and in a more selective market, a good filter is invaluable.
- Maintain a non-negotiable focus on quality. When headline data are uneven, quality is the constant. In 2025, buyers were willing to stretch for works that were clearly best-in-class and equally willing to ignore second-tier examples. That pattern is unlikely to change in 2026.
- Treat price history as context, not destiny. Some works in November sold below their previous highs, while others set new records. Past prices are informative, but they should not be the sole guide for decision-making. In 2026, it will be especially important to ask: Does this work make sense at this level now, given quality, rarity and demand—not just what it achieved in 2021.
- Use time to your advantage. A market that is neither racing ahead nor collapsing gives collectors the luxury of time: time to compare works, to revisit a piece after seeing more, to track how an artist’s market behaves across a few seasons. Resist the urge to equate speed with sophistication.
- Invest in information and relationships. In 2025, the most successful transactions—particularly around major collections—were those where buyers had a deep understanding of the work’s context and a trusted channel to access it, whether through a gallery, advisor or auction specialist. In 2026, good information and strong relationships are likely to matter as much as capital.
- Make space for thoughtful discovery. Even in a more disciplined environment, some of the most meaningful acquisitions will be the ones that introduce something genuinely new to a collection—a different period in an artist’s career, a link between two existing themes, or a work that sharpens the collection’s point of view. Discovery need not mean speculation; it can simply mean allowing the collection to evolve thoughtfully.
A market that rewards seriousness
The art market in 2025 did not deliver a simple headline. It offered a mixed picture: softer aggregate numbers, stressed speculative segments, record-setting results for exceptional works and a steady current of activity in the middle.
For collectors, the message is ultimately encouraging. A more segmented, more discerning market is one in which connoisseurship, planning and patience matter—and in which those qualities can translate directly into better collections.
If 2026 continues the patterns we saw this year, it will not be the easiest moment to sell ordinary works at optimistic prices. But it may prove to be an unusually good moment to buy the right works—and to build collections that will matter.
