Peak Performance: The Artists Who Power The $1 Million+ Market

• Analyst: Sotheby's & ArtTactic
• Pages: 76

We are delighted to launch the second report in the Peak Performance series in partnership with Sotheby’s. In this new report, we take a deep dive into the $1m+ fine art market and in particular the artists who power it. This edition presents a detailed market analysis of the top 50 artists who lead the market, both in terms of value and frequency at auction.

To be included, at least 25 artworks by each artist must have sold at auction for more than $1m between 2018–22. We are also pleased to introduce an artist Power Ranking in this report: a new metric that captures annual trends at auction by evaluating five distinct factors: market size, liquidity, price point, buyer confidence and momentum.

The analysis is based on auction data from Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips, gathered and evaluated by ArtTactic, and covers four main fine art collecting segments: Contemporary (including Post-War), Impressionist and Modern, Old Masters and Chinese works of art. It also includes unique analysis on bidder trends and demographics as well as private sales based on Sotheby’s proprietary data.

We believe that this combination of public and private art market data will provide our readers with new insights and a more holistic view of the $1m+ market and the artists within it. We hope this will contribute to more awareness and understanding of the underlying dynamics of this important market.