Wealth levels are rising, while sales figures in the global art market are declining. What's happening?
The first six months of 2025 haven't been the best for auction sales. Although the world's wealthiest people and their fortunes are doing well, they aren't necessarily investing their money in art.
We are at the moment of serious summing up of the first half of 2025 and unfortunately, it did not look good in all sectors.
Sales at Sotheby’s , Christie’s, and Phillips auction houses fell 6 percent from a year earlier in the January-June period, totaling $3.98 billion, according to a report from the analytics firm ArtTactic .
Sales at Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips auction houses declined in the first half of 2025 / photo: Unsplash, Rokuronan DorardCNBC reports that this is another year of declining auction sales , and worse still, the lowest figure in at least a decade. Experts also point out that sales of works in the postwar and contemporary art category, which was usually key to the overall market, have now fallen by 19 percent.
Do the richest no longer want to invest in art?ArtTactic specialists cite ongoing inflation and concerns arising from growing geopolitical tensions as the main causes of the current situation.
These factors will likely pose challenges to market dynamics in the second half of the year as the industry adapts to a still uncertain global landscape , they told CNBC .
The richest don't want to buy art? / Photo: Unsplash, Robin SchreinerYet the decline in auction sales may come as a surprise when we realize that the richest people in the world … can hardly complain.
Generational change among the wealthiestCNBC reports that the richest 10 percent of Americans have increased their net worth by—wait for it—$37 trillion since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic . So… they probably have money to buy.
"The question is whether we're witnessing a fundamental shift from the social norm whereby the very wealthy are heavily involved in collecting art at the highest prices and at the highest level. We don't know yet," William Goetzmann, a professor of finance and management at Yale, told American television.
The latest inheritance data may be due to a "generational shift" among millionaires and billionaires. The heirs of wealthy baby boomers may not necessarily want to continue expanding their collections, but rather… are eager to get rid of them.
Millennials and Gen Z are usually interested in a different style and are increasingly willing to invest in digital art.
What can auction houses do about this? They are increasingly organizing online auctions and offering more works of art at lower price points.
