The numbers are in for the 2026 Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report, and for an art market that spent much of the last two years in a mood of anxious self-assessment, they offer some genuine relief. Global art sales rose 4% in 2025 to reach $59.6 billion, according to the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026, authored as ever by Dr Clare McAndrew of Arts Economics. Growth, then. Modest, uneven, but real.
The Recovery was led from the top; however, it doesn’t account for the current crisis in the Middle East. High-end confidence returned, and public auction sales responded accordingly, up 9% year-on-year to $20.7 billion, a figure that tends to move sentiment most visibly. The dealer sector grew more quietly, rising 2% to $34.8 billion. Private sales, by contrast, slipped 5% to just under $4.2 billion, which suggests that the discreet end of the market is still finding its footing after a couple of difficult years.
Geographically, nothing dramatic shifted, but the details are worth noting. The US held its position as the dominant market, accounting for 44% of global sales by value — up one percentage point on the previous year. The UK stayed stable at 18%. China continued to contract, dropping a point to 14%, a trend that has been in place for some time and shows no obvious signs of reversing. France was the quiet story up a point to 8%, consolidating its place as the EU’s largest art market and inching toward relevance in a conversation that London and New York have long dominated.
The report, released today, covers dealers, auction houses, and art fairs, and situates the market’s performance within the broader economic and wealth landscape. It remains the most comprehensive data-driven overview the industry has produced in the ways all market reports are flawed, but essential reading regardless.
Report:
Art Market Returns to Growth in 2025 — But the Recovery is Uneven
The global art market grew 4% in 2025 to reach $59.6 billion. That’s the headline from the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026, authored by Dr Clare McAndrew of Arts Economics, and it’s a number the industry will receive with a mix of relief and caution. Growth, yes. But not across the board, not without caveats, and still well below the 2022 peak that everyone is quietly measuring against.
Two consecutive years of decline have a way of making a modest recovery feel more significant than it is. The more honest read is that the market has stabilised, recalibrated, and is moving again, just not uniformly.
Where the Money Went
Public auction sales were the strongest performer, up 9% to $20.7 billion, driven largely by what happened at the high end in the second half of the year. The Leonard A. Lauder collection and the Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection both came to market in November and pulled serious numbers. Fine art lots selling for more than $1 million rose 21% in value, while transactions at that level rose 15%. At the ultra-high end — works above $10 million — sales grew 30%, with a 9% increase in the number of lots sold. New York dominated completely. All ten of the top-priced lots in 2025 sold there, along with 39 of the top 50. London and Hong Kong will have noticed.
The dealer sector rose a more modest 2% to $34.8 billion. Nearly half of dealers reported increased sales — up 7% on 2024 — but operating costs rose 5% on average, faster than sales growth, which means margins remain under pressure even for those seeing the top line improve. Private sales slipped 5% to just under $4.2 billion, suggesting the quieter, relationship-driven end of the market is still finding its footing.
By Geography
The US, UK, and China together accounted for 76% of global sales — a stable year-on-year figure. The US extended its lead, reaching $26 billion, up 5%, with high-end auction activity particularly strong. The UK held at $10.5 billion, up 2%, despite subdued dealer sales. China inched up just over 1% to $8.5 billion, with ongoing weakness in the property market and fragile consumer confidence keeping the ceiling low. Hong Kong, more exposed to global headwinds than Mainland China, had a harder year.
France was arguably the most interesting story geographically — up 9% to $4.5 billion, now above its pre-pandemic 2019 level, driven by both auction and dealer sectors. Switzerland and Austria both grew 13%. Germany fell 10%. The picture across Europe was, in McAndrew’s measured phrasing, mixed.
Sectors
Postwar art remained the largest fine art auction category, accounting for 31% of sales by value, though it slipped 3% year-on-year. Modern art rebounded after three years of decline, up 9%. The standout number was Impressionist and Post-Impressionist, which surged 47% — driven by a handful of high-value works, but a striking reversal for a category many had written off as a spent force. Old Masters also strengthened, up 30%.
Contemporary art held steady at $1.4 billion, which, depending on your perspective, is either a reassurance or a sign of stagnation.
Online
Online-only sales fell to $9.2 billion, their lowest since 2019. High-end buyers migrated back to in-person channels, and auction houses increasingly reserved their best lots for live sales. Online remains important for new buyer acquisition and the lower-price segments, but its pandemic-era expansion has clearly reversed. Online’s share of the total market dropped 3% to 15%.
Female Artists
The representation numbers showed continued progress. Female artists now account for 50% of represented artists among primary market galleries — parity, for the first time. Across all dealers, the figure is 45%, up from 41% in 2024 and 35% in 2018. Works by female artists accounted for 37% of sales by value, up from 28% in 2018. The disparity that persists is at the top end — at galleries turning over more than $10 million, women represent just 35% of artists and 27% of sales—progress, then. But the gap closes slowly where the money is largest.
What the Numbers Don’t Say
McAndrew’s own commentary is worth sitting with. The market, she noted, operated throughout 2025 in a volatile geopolitical environment — tariffs, trade barriers, cross-border uncertainty — the full implications of which are still unfolding. Protectionism creates particular problems for a trade that depends on international circulation. While cross-border flows in art remained broadly stable last year, no one is confident about what 2026 will look like.
Noah Horowitz, Art Basel’s CEO, described 2025 as a “strategic inflexion point” — the kind of phrase that covers a lot of ground without quite committing to a direction. What it seems to mean in practice is that the gallerists and dealers who survived the last two years by tightening their programmes, focusing their client relationships and being more selective about which fairs they attend are now better positioned than those who didn’t. Art fair sales reached 35% of dealer turnover, the highest share since 2022. That’s nothing.
UBS chief economist Paul Donovan pointed to the Great Wealth Transfer as the structural factor underlying all of this — more than $83 trillion moving between generations over the coming decades, with wealth increasingly passing to women and younger collectors whose motivations, tastes and philanthropic instincts differ from those of the generation handing over. The market that emerges on the other side of that transfer will look different. The question is how different, and how fast.
Outlook
Optimism has improved. Forty-three per cent of dealers expect sales to strengthen in 2026, up 10% from the previous year’s survey. Nineteen per cent anticipate a decline — a steady number, and a reminder that Recovery at the aggregate level doesn’t reach everyone equally.
The full Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026 is available now at:
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