Understanding Regional Differences in the Globalized Art Market

This article is part of the Artnet Intelligence Report Year Ahead 2024. Through in-depth analysis of last year’s market performance, the new edition paints a data-driven picture of the art world today, from the latest auction results to the artists and artworks leading the conversation.

The art market’s globalization has accelerated over the past three decades in line with broader economic and cultural trends. In the early 2000s, auction houses and art dealers worked to cultivate clients beyond Europe and North America, targeting the so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) through specialized sales and events.¹ Today, the art market is thoroughly global, with participants flying from country to country for art fair openings and placing bids at auction from halfway around the world. Artists and collectors also frequently work with galleries in multiple countries. But key regional distinctions remain.

In order to explore how artists from different regions have performed at auction over time, and how their markets have developed in unique ways, in Part One, Morgan Stanley, in collaboration with Artnet, will examine auction sales and the volume of lots sold over the past decade by artists from North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Artnet Analytics sources nationality information from artists’ CVs and auction house records. Artists with dual nationalities in different regions are reflected in two data sets. For a more nuanced look at the performance of artists from each region, we will break down total sales by category.² “Old Masters” covers artists born from 1250 to 1820; “Impressionist and Modern” covers artists born between 1821 and 1910; “Postwar and Contemporary” covers artists born between 1911 to 1974; and “Ultra-Contemporary” covers artists born after 1974.

Art markets do not develop in a vacuum; they require vibrant institutions, exhibitions, and other stakeholders in order to grow. In Part Two, we will explore the key developments in each aforementioned region for the rest of 2024. We will highlight important museum openings and expansions; biennials and major exhibitions; and critical art market developments to offer a global look ahead, broken down by region.

Part One: The Data

As we break down the data on fine art sales by region and genre, several themes emerge. The market for North American-born and European-born artists’ work is the largest and steadiest. The market for work by African- born artists has grown appreciably—albeit in fits and starts—over the past decade. Meanwhile, the market for work by Asia-Pacific-born artists has markedly declined over the same period. For context, a chart of global fine art auction sales—including, but not limited to, all regions discussed herein—is below.

North America and Europe

Work by artists born in these two regions commands by far the largest share of global fine art sales. The just over $3 billion and nearly $6 billion in sales in 2023 for North American- and European-born artists, respectively, formed 65 percent of the $13.9 billion global fine art auction market in 2023. This share has remained relatively consistent over the past decade.

Of the two groups, European-born artists consistently have the larger market share by both value and volume. In 2023, the number of lots sold by North American-born artists (76,065) was less than half the number of lots sold by European-born artists (165,220). The regions, however, are on diverging trajectories. Over the past decade, the number of lots by North American-born artists offered annually has grown by 47 percent, while the number by European-born artists has decreased by 7 percent.

For North American-born artists, the most successful genre at auction is consistently Postwar and Contemporary, a trend that appears to be due to American-born artists having gained a foothold in the art market relative to their European-born peers during this era. The Postwar and Contemporary category includes Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, and Roy Lichtenstein, who account for the five top-performing North American-born artists by total sales. Excluding outlier years—2016 (when the global auction market contracted by 22 percent) and 2020 (during the pandemic shutdowns)—the sales totals for Postwar and Contemporary for North American-born artists landed between…