What's Really the State of the Art Market? Spring 2025 Results Reflect Cautious & Selective Buying
Photo: NY Frieze Art Fair, Spring 2025 at the Shed
The Spring 2025 New York auction season revealed a market in retreat, marked by underperformance of auction houses' expectations, prolonged dealmaking, and selective collecting based on value, quality, and rarity.
Here are some key takeaways of a season that help one see beyond press releases and optimistic attitudes to understand what the results indicate about the art market:
Auction houses failed to meet expectations. Combined totals from Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips, reaching $1B excluding fees, fell short of the projected $1.2B to $1.6B estimates. According to The New York Times, “By the art world’s own accounting, the spring auction season fell short of even its lowest target.”
The high-end segment showed signs of fragility. Exemplified by the failure to sell Alberto Giacometti’s Large Thin Head (1955) at Sotheby’s, which was estimated at $70M but withdrawn after receiving no bids. This marks a broader shift: trophy lots are no longer guaranteed successes, and bidding is more cautious rather than the irrational exuberance witnessed during the pre-pandemic market. With geopolitical issues looming, changes to KYC laws, luxury taxes in Asia and beyond, collectors are keen to discriminate what's “Good,” “Better,” and “Best.”
Underperformance of heavily promoted lots. Even the season’s headline-grabbing work, by a 1990s female artist, came with caveats. Marlene Dumas’ Miss January (1997) sold for $13.6M at Christie’s, setting a new record for a living female artist and helping to rebalance the inequity on the block. However, if one looks closer, the result failed to meet the market’s high expectations of $18M, which represents a 24.44% underperformance for a work that received extraordinary exposure and market push from Christie’s.
Auction showed solid bidding but generally lacked irrational exuberance for iconic works. Single-owner sales were prominent during Spring Sales and the primary source of supply for auction houses to offer rare inventory, including the marquee collections of Barbara Gladstone and the Leonard & Louise Riggio. Works from the Riggio Collection were of impeccable condition, amazing provenance, fresh to the market, and in more than a few cases, were very rare. Yet the bidding for many lots was measured, thoughtful, and judicious. While the night’s total [including buyer’s premium] of $489 million exceeded the $446 million pre-sale low estimate, the overall sale total fell short of the high estimate, a further indication that buyers' appetites were less robust than sellers' optimism.
Collector behavior has shifted. Buyers are taking more time to close deals, demanding more negotiating room, and expecting slightly higher discounts. While interest in blue-chip art remains, the pace and psychology of acquisitions have notably slowed. Simply - it's a Buyer’s market.
Primary market remains selective yet active. Whilst the secondary market showed an overall retreat, the primary market showed signs of life—especially for micro-markets including female, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ art. With over a dozen major art fairs across New York this spring, the activity and enthusiasm for primary market material were palpable. Despite some booths selling out before the fair openings, extremely thin sales were simultaneously evident and reported by co-exhibiting galleries. This reflects a selective market with uneven buying appetites amongst collectors, which puts hesitation into collectors’ confidence in consigning material. The Independent Art Fair, founded by Elizabeth Dee in 2010, has continued to be a standout success, characterized by insider buzz, brisk sales during its first hours, and critical approval from the art world.
Online sales presence remains essential. Digital strategy remains crucial for art sellers to find success in the marketplace. As reported in Artsy’s Art Market Trends 2025, “43% of galleries plan to focus more on online sales,” underscoring the ongoing importance of digital platforms in a fractured and dispersed global market.
Without question, this season confirmed one fact: it's a Buyer’s market. While the Spring 2025 season revealed clear signs of contraction, this moment is better understood as a strategic recalibration—one that rewards discernment, long-term vision, and the strength of trusted advisory relationships.
Read more on the topic:
Artnet on the shifting art market sensibilities
Artnet on the Spring 2025 sales that look beyond press releases
Artnet on the Spring 2025 sales results
Artsy on market trends to note
Financial Times on what lots that failed to sell tell us about the state of the art market
The Wall Street Journal for a summary of the Spring sales results
The Wall Street Journal Podcast on the “giant bust rocking the art world”
The New York Times on the Spring Season’s mixed sales results
Editorial by Renée Vara & Valentina Scarzella, VARA ART.