The art market in 2024: what else we learned

Going through the three art market reports that have landed on magpie’s desk in the last few days – Artprice.com’s The Art Market in 2024; the Art Basel / UBS Art Market Report 2025; and The Intelligence Report: The Year Ahead 2025 by Artnet – meant we accumulated a large number of … well, numbers. Away from the main headlines, here are some that we found particularly interesting.

Dealers

17% increase in sales year on year among the smallest dealers (turnover below $250,000pa) – the best performing category by dealer size Art Basel
24% proportion of dealers that have been in business for 10 years or less Art Basel
75 median number of works sold by dealers in 2024 Art Basel
85% share of dealer sales at $50,000 or less Art Basel

Buyers

38% share of dealers’ sales to new buyers (up 5% from 2023) Art Basel
72 average number of individual buyers that dealers sold to in 2024 (48 for smaller dealers turning over less than $250,000) Art Basel

Artists

23 average number of artists represented by dealers (39 for those operating in both the primary and secondary markets) Art Basel
56% contribution to dealers’ annual turnover coming from their top three artists Art Basel

Art fairs

10% increase in dealers’ costs for exhibiting at art fairs in 2024 Art Basel
31% proportion of dealers who cut back on art fair exhibition in 2024 (they averaged three fairs each in the year) Art Basel

Women

9 number of women among the 100 top-selling fine artists at auction in 2024 (it was 11 in 2023) Artnet
63 number of women in the Top 500 artists ranked by their annual auction turnover in 2024 Artprice

Auctions

9 number of women among the 100 top-selling fine artists at auction in 2024 (it was 11 in 2023) Artnet
63 number of women in the Top 500 artists ranked by their annual auction turnover in 2024 Artnet
10% proportion of art auction lots that sold for under $79 Artprice
26.5% average decline in fine art auction sales at the top three auction houses – Christie’s -18%, Sotheby’s -38.1%, Phillips -23.5% Artnet
7 the number of works by Jean-Michel Basquiat in the top 10 contemporary lots sold at auction in 2024 Artnet
$14m the loss in value of Rothko’s Untitled (yellow and blue) between its $46.4m sale at auction in 2015 and its $32.4m at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in November 2024 Artprice

The future

33% proportion of art-trade businesses expected improving sales in 2025 (down 3% from 2023) – 47% were hoping for a stable year, 19% anticipated a decline Art Basel
42% proportion of dealers reporting ‘political/economic volatility’ as their major challenge for the year. Second was ‘relationships with existing customers’ at 39%, third was ‘costs of art fairs’ at 34% Art Basel