Art Auctions 2023

You know I love art and finance.

This week I listened to a presentation by ArtTactic founder Anders Petterson, someone I deeply respect and admire - a former investment banker who noticed that art sale data could be aggregated and analyzed. ArtTactic reports hit the sweetspot - an equity research report about art.

I want to share four of these insights with you in the form of pretty charts and CAGRs.

Note: 2020 affected by COVID-19 in all charts below. All chart data sourced from ArtTactic.

Global Art Auction Sales, 2016-2022 (USD $bn)

Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Philips

This chart shows that three auction houses alone sold $14bn of art publicly in 2022 alone. We see a compounded annual growth rate (“CAGR”) of +7.6% from 2016-2022. 2023 is tracking to $6bn in the first half of 2023, noticeably affected by rising interest rates, economic headwinds, and global instability in Europe and the Middle East. The New York auctions this week will be key indicators of the next 12 months.

Women Artist Trends, 2015-2023E (USD $mm)

Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Philips

We love to see it! The chart below shows the growing sale and representation of female artists in the auction markets. From 2015 to 2022, total sales and number of women artists increased +16.5% CAGR and +6.1% CAGR, respectively. Wooooo!

$1mm+ Lot Market ($US bn), 2018-2022

Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Philips

This chart focuses only the lots selling for US$1mm or higher at the auction houses. Although these are only ~4% of lots sold, the sales figures account for over 50% of total sales - winning the big-ticket artworks is important for the auction houses.

Not shown in the chart is that Asia, Europe and US were the largest group of bidders for the $1mm+ works at approximately 30%, 30% and 40% respectively. In the next week, works like an estimated $120mm Picasso, a $65mm Monet and a $50mm Bacon are coming to auction - we’ll see how 2023 compares.

Single Owner Collections, 2016-2023E ($USD mm)

Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Philips

This is is an interesting chart showing that the total proceeds from single owner collections at the auction houses increased from 9% in 2016 to 31% of total sales in 2022. A single owner sale means that all the lots from the specific auction came from one owner, like the Paul G. Allen Collection at Christie’s in November 2022 that brought in US$1.5 billion. We can see that these single owners are becoming increasingly important for the auctions, as the global wealth transfer filters into the art auction markets.

As +$80 trillion of wealth is expected to transfer from baby boomers over the next two decades, I think we will see a steady supply of high quality artwork and significant collections in the pipeline. It will also be interesting to see how taste changes. Will the younger generations take after the older generations? I believe so.

I love data. I love the intersection of art and finance. Thanks for reading.

Katya

Cover: Roman Opałka, 1965/1-∞. Christie’s.