However, Citi’s analysis indicates that a slowdown in China is under way.
“I think we’ll see a bit of a plateau in the art market from 2015, but not necessarily a major loss of momentum,” Bickar says. “We’re still hearing that there are a lot of buyers from Asia and the Middle East.”
Elsewhere, emerging markets in parts of India, Africa, South America and Southeast Asia aren’t yet driving higher prices for artwork, but collectors in these regions are strengthening global demand and broadening collectors’ taste in art, according to Bickar.
“The market is changing. It’s more international and there are more players,” Bickar says.
For the most part, collector tastes still favor works from the Impressionist period to the present, with Impressionist and modern art eclipsing the postwar and contemporary categories for the first time in 10 years. But buyers are shifting their focus from big names such as Picasso, Monet and Lichtenstein to other quality works, Bickar says.
“It’s a more discriminate market,” Bickar says.
That means the price gap between established and contemporary artists is going to narrow, Bickar says.
“The art market has a lot of nuances in terms of what the value of a piece might be,” Bickar says. “We guide people to do the due diligence that one should do prior to spending money on an artwork.”
In some ways, art is more sensitive to small fluctuations than equities. When a masterpiece is left on the auction block unsold, as were Lucian Freud’s “Naked Portrait on a Red Sofa” and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Hannibal,” it impacts buyer sentiment, but not always for the right reasons, says Bickar.
A variety of issues can come into play, such as mispricing, the condition of the artwork or simply a clash of tastes, she says.
“But it’s a moment that people pay attention to and it can impact subsequent sales,” she says.
—Chris Robbins
Market Erodes Forbes List Fortunes
For the first time since the recession, the number of people with at least $1 billion in net worth has declined, according to Forbes.
This year there are 1,810 billionaires, down from 1,826 in 2015, and their average net worth declined from $3.86 billion to $3.58 billion, according to the publisher’s 30th annual billionaire list.
Forbes cites volatility in global markets for the declines among the ultra-wealthy.
Over the past 12 months, the world’s billionaire population has lost nearly $600 billion from their total net worth, declining from $7.05 trillion last year to $6.48 trillion this year, according to Forbes.
About two-thirds of those on the list, or 1,186 members, are self-made billionaires. Of the remainder, 228 inherited their wealth and another 396 inherited at least a portion of their wealth.
According to Forbes, the 10 richest billionaires in the world are: Bill Gates, $75 billion; Amancio Ortega, $67 billion; Warren Buffett, $61 billion; Carlos Slim Helú, $50 billion; Jeff Bezos, $45 billion; Mark Zuckerberg, $45 billion; Larry Ellison, $44 billion; Michael Bloomberg, $40 billion; Charles Koch, $40 billion; and David Koch, $40 billion.
—PW Staff