The Middle Market

Bloudin/Artinfo has just published a very interesting article on the middle market of the fine art market.  The article classifies the middle market at sales of lots (at auction) selling between $100,000 and $1 million.  The article is basically stating that in the art market there is growth, but it is only at the top end of the market.  While the middle market has pretty much stayed the same over the past 5 years, but also notes it is down from the spring of 2011..

I recommend all fine art appraisers follow the link below to read and print the article in full, and also click on the link to the available chart revealing the market calculations for the various market sectors.

ArtInfo reports

Meanwhile, even as the sales of top-of-the-line trophies have skyrocketed, the middle market is treading water. While sales of lots between $100,000 and $1 million grew along with the upper tier from spring 2010 to spring 2011, sales in the middle market for the five categories shrank by an average of 12 percent in the more recent year. In the middle market, total sales for spring 2012, along with the number of lots sold in the five categories, were about even with figures from spring 2010. In other words, all of the growth in the art market in the last year has been at the very top.

The most affected categories seem to be Impressionist and modern art, where the median price for a work in the middle-market range went from $230,361 in spring 2010 to $322,000 in spring 2011, but plunged down to $215,481 in spring 2012. Median middle-market prices for all five categories over the last three years have, on average, gone from $210,000 in spring 2010 to $240,000 in spring 2011 right back to $210,000 in spring 2012. The mean for the three springs is slightly higher than the median, but follows the same trend, moving from $283,000 in 2010 to $305,000 in 2011 back down to $291,000 in 2012. Though the sample size is small, the trend may suggest that mid-market prices hit a peak and are beginning to correct themselves, despite the "growing" art market.

WHERE'S THE OTHER HALF?

Of course, the data that ARTINFO has looked at tells just one story, though one that is important. These are five of the largest categories of fine arts sold through auction houses in North America and Europe, and as such represent a good cross-section of the secondary art market. But the "art market" is much more than the publicly recorded results of paintings that hit the auction block. The auction houses conduct private sales, and of course there are the private dealers and galleries — all of whom keep their sales private. Other than anecdotal evidence picked up at fairs and rumors heard at parties, it's impossible to know how the other half of the art market is doing. (The lack of a developed gallery scene that is one of the reasons that many are skeptical that China is really the world's largest art market, as many reports that look only at auction sales have it.)

Source: Artinfo