By Tess A. Toland April 2, 2026
After years of sluggish reluctance and a shaking off of pandemic cobwebs, the global market for art and luxury objects is bouncing back.
In the words of Bonnie Brennan, Christie’s chief executive, “[t]he markets are stable, inflation rates are down and people are making money so they can focus on art collecting again.”[1] American collectors at Christie’s bought $2.6 billion of art in 2025—15% more than in 2024—accounting for 41% of Christie’s global sales last year.[2] Fine art is the leader of this rebound, with auction sales up 13.3% in 2025, to $11.7 billion.[3] Still, despite the confidence expressed by the world’s leading auction houses on the trajectory of the markets, the growth path of the global art market in 2025 was hardly steep. The global art market grew 4% to $59.6 billion, dealer sales grew 2%, public auction sales grew 9%, and reported private sales sunk 5%.[4] There appears to be some rebound, but we cannot presently classify it as a boom.[5]
ROMANS PARISIENS BY VINCENT VAN GOGH AT SOTHEBY’S NOVEMBER 2025 SALES | PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF TESS A. TOLAND
The strongest recovery has been in high market works. Anders Petterson, founder of London-based ArtTactic, a leading provider of art market research and analysis, pointed to the fact that over the last 10 years, art selling for more than $1 million has constituted 77% of the total sales values at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips.[6] Sotheby’s and ArtTactic found that in 2025, 6% of auctioned works had hammer prices above $1 million, which accounted for 76% of total fine-art auction value in 2025.[7] These statistics demonstrate the art market’s dependence upon the wealth of the top 0.001% as its driving force.[8]
The art market is not rebounding across the board. 2025 saw a particular interest in masterpieces with historically backed values. Impressionist and Modern sales increased 29%, and Old Masters sales went up 41.2%.[9] Meanwhile, ultra-contemporary sales dropped 26.5%, leaving this movement circling far below its peak in 2021.[10]
The market for art and luxury objects notably caught the eye of younger collectors in 2025. As of the end of 2025, collectors under age 40 make up 33% of Christie’s buyer base and 25% of Sotheby’s.[11] The market surge that we witnessed in the second half of 2025 was, in part, fueled by a sweeping chatter that pulled Millennials and Gen Zs to the auction houses. Luxury goods specifically caught the eye of the twenty- and thirty-somethings who participated in bidding this past fall.[12]
As interest in art and luxury objects has (at long last) swept the narrative amongst the future generations of art patrons, galleries and auction houses have an opportunity to maintain and build the momentum of 2025. The best way to do this? Events. Among the generations that house our younger collectors, a constant buzz of notable occasions gets streamed across social media. Burgeoning interest in the art and luxury object markets, paired with a constant need to memorialize and spread noteworthy events to friends and followers on social media, means free press for auction houses and kindling to the growing level of attention younger generations are paying to the art and luxury objects markets.
Those marketing art for these events would do well to thematically cater towards the prevailing interests and sentiments of rising collectors. While traditional notions that art collections must be academic and encyclopedic are falling by the wayside, rising collectors are championing the idea of buying from the heart. Creating or expressing one’s unique persona is at the crux of my generation’s social aspirations, and there is no better way to form a distinctive identity than through patronage of distinctive art. Auction houses should host rising collectors and their peers, ply them with champagne, and show them something eccentric, something dark, something that makes them think.
Catering events towards younger collectors runs the risk of making older generations of buyers and collectors feel excluded, though any true patron of the arts and luxury goods is desirous of spreading that interest to others—and some healthy competition from a new demographic never hurt an auction result.
[1] Kelly Crow, The Art Market’s $13.2 Billion Comeback, Wall Street Journal (Dec. 17, 2025, at 5:00am EST), https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/fine-art/christies-sothebys-art-market-comeback-2025-420de1df?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqdzl7FWZZBMAhVN_yJJ3o0Ldk4WKMWhvNx0PFb-aQYLdPUORSrViv2ImLWm5e8%3D&gaa_ts=69ced20a&gaa_sig=HOt9LPeSQ6wHF4kY0HySzPrcM8qbEkmdnG1_rfza6tTALH4j8rwtVxCGTFBhmyym-k7oQ8Plipo-z-fR8NguSw%3D%3D.
[2] Id.
[3] The Art Bystander, The Art Market Is Back, But Only for Masterpieces, Substack (Apr. 1, 2026), https://theartbystander.substack.com/p/the-art-market-is-back-but-only-for.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Scott Reyburn, In a ‘K-shaped’ economy, the art market’s recovery could rely on the super-rich, The Art Newspaper (Jan. 6, 2026), https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/01/06/in-a-k-shaped-economy-the-art-markets-recovery-could-rely-on-the-super-rich.
[7] The Art Bystander, supra note 3.
[8] Scott Reyburn, supra note 6.
[9] The Art Bystander, supra note 3.
[10] Id.
[11] Kelly Crow, supra note 1.
[12] Id.