Art market worldwide - statistics & facts

Overview
Key figures
Statistics

Published by Statista Research Department, Dec 9, 2020

The global art market is a marketplace of buyers and sellers trading in the services, articles, and works-of-art and culture commonly associated with the various arts. While the market remains predominantly offline, online sales have seen increasing growth in recent years. The global art market was valued at over 67 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, up from almost 64 billion the previous year. This increase is also shown in the volume of global art sales which reached approximately 40 million transactions in 2018, up from 39 million the previous year. When looking at different regions, North America held the highest share of the global art market, with Europe placing second.

Museums, galleries, and cultural institutions

Also included in the art market are cultural institutions such as art museums, galleries and exhibitions which allow people all over the globe to view cultural, historical and artistic pieces. The Louvre, Paris was not only the largest museum in the world but also the most frequently visited museum, with over eight million visitors in 2018. Similarly, some exhibitions are more well visited than others. For example, in 2018, the “Heavenly Bodies” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, U.S. attracted around approximately 1.66 million visitors through its doors, making it the most visited exhibition worldwide.

Why do people buy art?

Appreciation of art is also important when it comes to buying. During a 2019 survey, 65 percent of collectors and 81 percent of art professionals stated that they bought art for a collecting purpose but with an investment view. When it comes to those buying, Europe was the region with the highest share of art buyers across the globe, with a special focus on the United Kingdom. That being said, the location with the highest volume of the wealthiest art collectors globally in 2018 was the United States.

Global art auction market

The U.S. is also the country with the highest global share of the auction market. Auctions are one of the most common methods when it comes to the sale of art, with global auction sales reaching 5.55 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of 2019 alone. Typically, the most well-known artists & artworks are sold at auction – works from Pablo Picasso amassed the highest amount at auction in 2018 amassing a total of over 744 million U.S. dollars. When it comes to living artists “Portrait of an Artist/pool with Two Figures” by David Hockney was the artwork that reached the highest auction turnover in 2018.

This text provides general information. Statista assumes no liability for the information given being complete or correct. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date data than referenced in the text.