Artprice’s 2025 Art Market Report Sees a Late-Year Turnaround, With Growth Driven by Lower-Priced Sales
After three years of contraction, the art market is entering 2026 with something it has not had in a while: breathing room. In its 32nd annual Art Market Report 2025, Artprice points to a recovery that became difficult to ignore in the second half of 2025, even as the year’s early months extended the prevailing sense of caution.
The report, published March 10, 2026, describes a market that regained momentum across several core auction indicators. In the latter half of 2025, the number of lots sold increased, the number of sales rose, and unsold rates remained “under control,” according to Artprice’s analysis. At the top end, the report also notes an increase in millionaire hammer prices, alongside an expansion in global turnover.
Yet Artprice’s central argument is not that the market has simply rebounded. It is that the market is changing shape.
“A more complex picture than a simple rebound,” the report suggests, framing the current moment as a reorganization of how and where art changes hands. The high-end segment remains a key driver of confidence, but Artprice emphasizes a historic shift in what is providing stability: lower-priced transactions.
For the first time, the report argues, the market’s steadiness is anchored primarily in the lower end of the price spectrum, even as headline-making results continue to concentrate attention at the top. Artprice’s founder and president, Thierry Ehrmann, underscores the intensity of this activity, noting that while past cycles have produced higher peaks in turnover, transaction volumes have reached an unprecedented level — with more works circulating more frequently through auction rooms.
That emphasis on volume matters because it suggests a market drawing strength from breadth rather than a narrow band of trophy lots. In practical terms, it points to a sales ecosystem where liquidity is increasingly supported by frequent, lower-priced exchanges, rather than relying chiefly on a small number of blockbuster consignments.
The report also situates this recovery against a more fragile backdrop for galleries. Artprice describes a period of heightened vulnerability for the dealer sector worldwide, with major galleries closing or restructuring. The pressures are familiar but newly acute: rising overhead, escalating logistical costs, the financial demands of participating in major art fairs, and hesitation among parts of the traditional collector base.
In Artprice’s telling, this is not a peripheral concern. The gallery model has long served as a central intermediary between artists and collectors, shaping careers and sustaining markets beyond the auction calendar. The report suggests that this intermediary role now looks particularly exposed, even as auction metrics improve.
Taken together, Artprice’s findings sketch a market that is recovering, but not reverting. The second half of 2025 may have restored momentum, yet the foundations appear to be shifting toward higher transaction volume at lower price points — a recalibration that could influence everything from consignor strategy to how collectors build holdings in the years ahead.
