What’s behind the record-breaking rise in global art market sales?

During the closing weeks of last year, some phenomenal statistics were released underlining how strong the art market has been in spite of pandemic conditions. Not only were all the top auction rooms up substantially on 2020, but they had also risen significantly above pre-Covid, 2019 levels. Christie’s hit a five-year high at $7.1 billion (￡5.2 billion), 22 per cent up on 2019. Sotheby’s tallied $7.4 billion of sales, its highest annual total ever and 26 per cent up on 2019, and Phillips also had its best year ever, breaking the $1 billion sales barrier for the first time at $1.2 billion, up 35 per cent on 2019.

Commentators have singled out several reasons for the acceleration: stored wealth and pent-up demand; new money for new markets especially those, such as NFTs (non-fungible tokens), that are suited to the digital market and crypto currency payments; the high performance of the Asian market and the growing demand in Asia for Western art; and expanding demand for female artists and artists of African origin.

The question now is whether these elements can continue to grow through the omicron crisis or whether last year’s trends were founded only on short-term speculation. Will the whole market run out of steam, or just sectors of it?

The boom in African-origin artists has preoccupied both the commercial and the public museum sectors and is likely to continue in the same vein. At this year’s Venice Biennale, which bridges the gap between the commercial and curatorial, the US Pavilion will be occupied by a black female artist, Simone Leigh, for the first time, as will the British Pavilion with Sonia Boyce.

The market for female artists also looks likely to continue its rise. Christie’s set an impressive 66 records for female artists last year, including the highest value for a living female artist in Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin painting, which made $18.8 million in Hong Kong last month.

A controversial sector is the market for digital NFTs. The jury is out on whether NFTs qualify as art – but spending by speculators (more than $10 billion last year through both tech websites and art auctioneers) will no doubt carry this market on.

In more general terms, Asian demand will be a key factor. Last year, Christie’s made $1.68 billion of sales to Asian collectors, up

32 per cent on 2019. Sotheby’s hit a record $1.3 billion of sales in Asia saying that, on average, Asian collectors are ready to bid double than buyers from elsewhere.

For me, an area of crucial interest is whether the traditional markets will survive the assault of the new. Rumours that the Impressionist market was dead, for instance, were swept aside in November with a robust $332 million dollars sale for 23 works by Van Gogh, Caillebotte and others from the Cox collection, while at Sotheby’s 35 modern and contemporary works by the likes of Rothko, Pollock and Giacometti from the divorce settlement between Harry and Linda Macklowe realised an above estimate $676 million, making it the biggest ever single-owner sale Sotheby’s has ever conducted.

There must now be every reason to believe that similar treasure troves will be back on the auction block this year too. One certainty is that Sotheby’s has another tranche of 30 modern and contemporary masterpieces from the Macklowe collection worth $200 million, to be sold in May. A melancholic, brooding abstract by Rothko leads the field at $50 million. A photo-realist seascape by Gerhard Richter should make $35 million, while an almost 7ft-square camouflage coloured self-portrait by Andy Warhol, taken from a Polaroid just months before his death in February 1987, should make $20 million.

The continuing debate as to the value of NFTs compared to these masterworks is probably one of the few things we can rely on to happen this year.