Global Art Market Soars 29% In 2021

The global art market rebounded strongly in 2021 despite the challenges of the pandemic, according to a global art market report released Tuesday.

Aggregate sales, including sales by dealers and auction houses, jumped 29% from 2020 to an estimated US$65.1 billion last year, surpassing pre-pandemic levels in 2019, according to the annual report jointly published by Art Basel and UBS and authored by Clare McAndrew, founder of Dublin-based Arts Economics.

“The art market has demonstrated incredible resilience in 2021, with a strong uplift in aggregate sales, despite still operating under some very challenging conditions,” McAndrew said in the report. “Dealers and auction houses successfully adjusted to a new two-tier system of online and offline sales and events, and the rising wealth of the high-net-worth collectors helped to support demand at the higher end of the market.”

The median expenditure by high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), those who have a net worth of more than US$1 million, excluding real estate and private business assets, reached US$274,000 in 2021, more than double the level in 2020, according to the report.

Further, 74% of HNWIs surveyed bought art-based non-fungible tokens, or NFTs in 2021, with a median price of US$9,000 each, the report said.

The findings are based on a survey of 2,339 wealthy individuals across 10 major markets, and represent one element of the wide-ranging report on the state of the global art market.

Sales by dealers amounted to approximately US$34.7 billion in 2021, increasing 18% year-on-year. Public sales by auction houses, excluding private sales, reached an estimated US$26.3 billion in 2021, an increase of 47% from a year ago, according to the report.

Geographically, the U.S. still dominates, accounting for US$28 billion, or 43% of the total global sales of art and antiques in 2021. Greater China was the second largest with a market share of 20%, or US$13.4 billion in sales.

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Global Art Market Soars 29% In 2021

Reaching $65 billion in sales.