November Auction Sales Sees A Stark Drop in Works by Young Artists, After Years of Hype

Between 2020 and 2024, as the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted operations for galleries and upended exhibition schedules, auction houses saw a rush of resales of works just a few years old—pieces created by artists often in their twenties or thirties. Paintings by younger artists became especially prominent in evening sales in New York at Phillips, as well as its two larger competitors, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, which typically have bigger focuses on works by older, historic artists that are valued at far higher figures.

This month, New York sales across the three houses are expected to bring in a collective $1.6 billion, but the number of early and mid-career artists offered in the sales has fallen. The group of artists contained in the contemporary art sales appear to be more weighted towards older, more established artists, with those born in the 1980s and ’90s making up a far smaller portion of the financial weight.

(Estimated values of individuals art works are negotiated prior to the auctions with their sellers, whose identities are kept confidential.)

For example, during Phillips’s contemporary art evening sale last November, there were works by six artists born in the ’80s and ’90s, collectively valued at $1.12 million. Works by Lucy Bull, Ambera Wellman and Jade Fadojutimi were among them, with each valued from $120,000 to $600,000. Together, they made up 2 percent of the $70 million the sale ended up generating, including premium fees paid to the auction house. In this year’s equivalent sale, taking place early next week, that figure has dropped by 50 percent to $540,000, making up 1 percent of the $62 million that specialists expect the entire sale to make. By comparison, in 2022, that figure was significantly higher at $7.1 million, making up 5 percent of the $140 million generated by the same sale at Phillips.

The drop is a small indication of what some advisors, such as Gurr Johns CEO Harry Smith, recently described to ARTnews as a “needed reset” in the market’s reliance on a younger group of artists to consistently generate large sums and scale up revenues.

Out of an estimated 120 works across all three contemporary evenings sales scheduled to take place next week, there are only six artists who were born in the ’90s, with another five in the 1980s. Of the first age group, 27-year-old painters Li Hei Di and Pol Tabouret, based in London and Paris respectively, are the youngest and the season’s only “debuts”— a term given to artists appearing at auction for the first time. (Debuts are typically the first time values for those artists’ works are publicly disclosed). The others, Jadé Fadojutimi, Sasha Gordon, Louis Fratino and Lucy Bull, were all introduced similarly during the pandemic.

Li and Tabouret are both still gaining followings from collectors. A profile in Cultured last year put a spotlight on Tabouret before he was featured in François Pinault’s Bourse de Commerce dark humor themed-group show “Le monde comme il va” (“The World as It Goes”) in Paris in March. Both artists have said in past interviews they have interests in body horror that come from following older figures like Miriam Cahn and Francis Bacon.

Fadojutimi, the subject of a recently-opened Gagosian exhibition, has consistently appeared at auction in the “ultra-contemporary” category—a term coined to designate works by painters born after 1974. Over the last four years, just under ninety works of hers have surfaced in public sales—with values rising over 1,000 percent from $40,000 to $500,000. Some reasons behind the rise might be found in a recent New Yorker profile on Fadojutimi, which described her practice as distinctly fast-paced, often finishing what she calls “one-hit” paintings in just a few hours. But her market may be plateauing after four years of rising prices. One of her paintings offered during a London evening sale for close to $400,000 failed to sell at Christie’s in October.

In 2022, two years into the pandemic, Los Angeles gallerist Bennett Roberts observed in an interview with ARTnews that, as auction houses expanded their businesses, they looked to fast-turnover sales of younger artists. Demand for fresh works was higher as collectors sought new acquisitions, but galleries were more limited in being able to facilitate them. Roberts explained at the time that around five to seven years prior, before the ultra-contemporary category was coined, there wasn’t as much direct access to newer artists.

“It wasn’t normal to have works coming directly from the studio,” he said.

But, as younger artists become less of a fixture, it’s unclear where collectors’ attention will go next. Gallerists often see quickly rising prices in public sales for early-career artists as interfering with their own businesses— making it harder to keep prices stable and to support them long-term.

A recent UBS and Art Basel survey reported that since 2023, the average amount collectors were spending on individual works dropped 32 percent from the year before, to $364,000, with some people interpreting the fall as a simple return to a slower pace. (That metric that is based on publicly available data.).

But, in an email to ARTnews responding to the report’s findings, New York art advisor Megan Fox Kelly said there’s a shift right now among the clients she works with, veering away from prestige pieces and favoring ones priced at or below $700,000—the level that ultra-contemporary artists often fall under.

“The focus has shifted to steady, stable buys,” she added.