In 2024, the art auction market shows signs of recovery, but it is far from reaching the high point in 2022, and is even lower than last year’s level.
The cumulative value of the top ten auction lots sold in 2024 was $512.6 million. This is down 22.3% from the 2023 total of $660 million and down 53% from the 2022 total of $1.1 billion. Meanwhile, public auction sales in the Old Master, modern, post-war and contemporary art categories at auction houses Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips will total $4.1 billion in 2024, according to a recent report by London-based analytics firm ArtTactic. This number is down 29% from 2023 and 47.9% from 2022.
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The most expensive work sold at auction in 2024: a work by René Magritte empire of light (1954), which was sold for $121.1 million after intense bidding at Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale in New York in November, setting a new record for the artist. However, its value is far less than Andy Warhol’s $195 million Shooting Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) just two years earlier. Meanwhile, Vincent van Gogh’s 10th most expensive work of 2024 moored canoe (1887), sold for $32.2 million, well below the $79.8 million benchmark set by Magritte empire of light In March 2022, it became the tenth most expensive work of the year.
Pablo Picasso’s works, usually the benchmark for the market, fell in 2024. The total value of this year’s top 10 Picasso works is $114.6 million, down from $344.4 million in 2023, $274.8 million in 2022 and $340.7 million in 2021. For the first time in three years, the cumulative value of Picasso’s top ten works fell below $200 million. Meanwhile, the top 20 Picasso works have sold a total of $128.4 million at auction. This figure is down significantly from $690 million in 2023. This is the highest auction price for a Picasso work this year, statue (1925), sold for US$24.8 million in November, down 82% from US$139 million woman wearing watch (1932) 2023.
However, one should be cautious about drawing too many conclusions from these numbers. In the past four years alone, Basquiat’s highest-priced work has fluctuated wildly, jumping from $15 million in 2020 to $93 million in 2021 before falling to $85 million in 2022 and 2023. of US$67 million. This year’s top work sold for $46 million. At the same time, Magritte’s top work this year may have been sold for $121.1 million, but the sales of his top works have fluctuated year by year, from $24.6 million in 2020 to $17.2 million in 2021 to $79.4 million in 2022. million, and $42.3 million by 2023.
As the ArtTactic report makes clear, these valuations do not represent changes in the market for either artist. Rather, they represent the normal range of values for blue-chip artists of the 20th century, with high water marks more representative of the material that was available that year.
(Methodology: The above report relies on art sales data provided by market analysis publishers Artnet and ArtTactic.)
