Artprice, a France-based consultancy which aggregates auction data from around the world, said the value of art sold in 2024 slumped to $9.9 billion (9.1 billion euros), the lowest level since 2009.
All the major art hubs recorded steep falls, with New York down 29 percent, London down 28 percent and Paris down 21 percent as collectors turned cautious given global economic uncertainty.
The Chinese market shrank to just $1.8 billion from $4.9 billion in 2023, underlining the weakness of the world's second-biggest economy.
"Major collectors have grown hesitant including for major artists such as Mark Rothko, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly or Jean-Michel Basquiat," Thierry Ehrmann, founder of Artprice, told AFP.
The value of Pablo Picasso sales -- a leading indicator for the rest of the market -- totaled $223 million in 2024, around a third of the $597 million spent on the Spanish master the previous year, the data showed.
Gone are the days of endless record-breaking bids at art auctions, with the once-booming market spurred by speculator cash in decline since 2021.
That has meant some high-end sellers have postponed or cancelled planned sales, making fewer works available.
In a sign of the changed climate, leading auction house Sotheby's laid off 100 staff members -- six percent of its global workforce -- in December.
- Cutbacks -
Experts say the steep fall last year was linked to wars in Ukraine and Gaza, major elections across the globe, and higher interest rates, which raised the cost of borrowing.
The Chinese economy has slowed dramatically since the Covid-19 pandemic, facing headwinds caused by a debt crisis in its real estate industry and tariffs from its trading partners.
For high-net-worth buyers, "art is the first luxury that you stop buying when you need to consolidate, which is why positive economic news feeds back into the art market quite quickly", said Lindsay Dewar from the London-based ArtTactic art market consultancy.
Industry insiders are now wondering how the global market will react to Donald Trump's presidency. Initial optimism about a "Trump bump" on stock markets has faded fast as he introduces tariffs and rows with allies.
Weakening demand at the global art collector level also feeds through to primary sales -- sales of work through galleries -- which affect artists' prices and income.
Dewar said that her conversations with gallery owners indicated they had a "tough year" in 2024.
Nevertheless, she sees reasons for optimism.
The overall number of auction sales increased last year -- up five percent to 800,000, according to Artprice figures -- with activity at the lower end of the market for works at $50,000 or under showing robust health.
And some sales are still outperforming, including a Magritte which fetched a record $121 million for the surrealist artist in November, far above the guide price of $95 million.
"People do still want to trade, to buy and sell artwork. The desire is still there," Dewar said.
A portrait by an AI-powered robot of the English mathematician Alan Turing, considered one of the fathers of modern computing, also raised a million dollars at Sotheby's in November, 10 times higher than expected.
Two major upcoming auction sales will give a sense of conditions at the top-end of the market.
Sotheby's is set to sell works belonging to late New York banker Thomas A. Saunders and his wife in May, while Christie's will put part of book mogul Leonard Riggio's modern-art collection under the hammer in the next few months.
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