Young Artists Rode a $712 Million Boom. Then Came the Bust.

Artists saw six-figure sales and heard promises of stardom. But with the calamitous downturn in the art market, many collectors bolted — and prices plummeted.

Amani Lewis, shown with a 2024 painting, “Galatians 6:2 — the carriers,” in an artspace in Miami. Another work’s value plummeted by 90 percent. The painter said, “It feels like ‘We’re done with Amani Lewis.’” Ysa Pérez for The New York Times

By Zachary Small and Julia Halperin

Aug. 18, 2024

How did the best years of Amani Lewis’s career turn into the worst time of the artist’s life?

First came the meteoric rise. A haunting painting Lewis made in 2020 sold at auction just a year later for $107,100, more than double its estimate. Two other works had recently tripled expectations, and a collector offered $150,000 in cash for new pieces fresh from the studio. There were shows in Paris and Miami — Lewis had seemingly conquered the market at age 26, upgrading to a new art studio and a Tesla.

But when the original painting re-emerged at auction in June and its price plunged to $10,080 — losing 90 percent of its value — the party was over. By then, Lewis had stopped renting a $7,000-a-month luxury apartment in Miami and temporarily moved in with their brother.

“It was such a nice high and then it drops,” the artist, now 29, said. “It feels like, ‘We’re done with Amani Lewis.’”

This painting sold for $107,100 in 2021. Then it resold for $10,080 — a 90% drop in value.

Amani Lewis, “Into the Valley, the Boy Walks (Psalms 23:4)”

Over the last year, as money drained from the art market, young art stars around the world experienced dramatic setbacks that submerged their careers.

The Ghanaian artist Emmanuel Taku had a painting sell in 2021 for $189,000 only to watch its price drop in March to $10,160 at auction. Cubist-style portraits by Isshaq Ismail, which sold for as much as $367,000 two years ago, have failed to rise beyond $20,000. Allison Zuckerman, a Brooklyn artist, also felt the market’s contractions; her riotous painting “Woman With Her Pet” sold for $212,500 three years ago, but mustered only $20,160 at auction in June.

What happened to the bull market and the notion that all artworks appreciate in value? The art market has been experiencing a downturn for the last few years, but the slump has been particularly acute for young artists. During the early pandemic, a speculative boom driven by a misplaced belief in quick returns set in, with collectors spending $712 million at auction in 2021 on works by artists born after 1974 — a giant leap from the $259 million buyers spent just a year earlier. But from 2021 to 2023, the prices for these artists — “ultracontemporary” is the industry term for them — plummeted by almost a third, according to the Artnet Price Database.

Experts say the downward trend is continuing; in the first half of 2024, sales of work by young artists fell 39 percent over last year. Collectors had overestimated the market’s strength; fearing the work might soon become impossible to sell, they wanted to make at least some of their money back — regardless of what public flops might mean for an artist’s future.

This painting sold for $189,000 in 2021. Then it resold for $10,160 — a 95% decline in value.

Emmanuel Taku, “Sisters in Pink”

Artists rarely benefit from high auction prices, since most works at auction are sold by collectors who have bought their works earlier and are now hoping to sell them for a profit. The artists also rarely speak — as they do here — about how art market speculation affects them personally and professionally. In retrospect, Ismail, 34, said he regretted selling up to five works at a time to art advisers and collectors — who swiftly resold them. “Everyone wants a piece of the cake,” he said, recalling how buyers made offers over email or on Instagram. It was hard to tell genuine collectors from speculators, he said.

Then, around 2021, record high prices caused a stampede of sellers, which flooded the fragile market. Gallerists raised artists’ prices but in some cases they overshot the target, discouraging potential buyers. When a dealer raised Lewis’s prices in 2022, the artist’s exhibition failed to sell out, adding to the financial strain. That was the beginning of the end.

“When the prices inflate that much, everyone gets really excited — and people tend to make a lot of mistakes,” said Loring Randolph, director of the Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Collection of art in Dallas. Buyers who felt they overpaid are “really pulling back now.”

Guessing Which Way the Pendulum Will Swing

Laurent Mercier, an art dealer representing Emmanuel Taku, said in a text message that what happened to the artist was “very sad and crazy.”

In 2021, Mercier said, Taku’s paintings had nearly 500 wait-listed buyers and promises of museum donations that would improve the artist’s reputation. But in the next two years, as other dealers entered the picture, works by Taku suddenly flooded the market, with supply outstripping demand. Prices began to collapse with some collectors offloading the artist’s work at auctions. Now Mercier is trying to clamp down on sales to build back demand.

“People don’t want to miss out and in the end will overpay,” Mercier said. “Then the pendulum swings the other way and even at too-cheap prices, few want to get in.”

Mercier said that he and Taku were organizing a comeback and “cleaning up the mess,” and that Taku’s paintings should go for $25,000 to $50,000 (compared with previous heights closer to $189,000).

Allison Zuckerman was 27 and working in her cramped apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when the mega-collectors Donald and Mera Rubell discovered her, buying more than 20 pieces. (She stashed dirty clothes under the bed before their visit.) Since 2021, her work has sold at auction 59 times, a remarkably high volume for a young artist. “It feels very out of body,” Zuckerman said of watching auctions. “Everything that went into that painting — the discoveries, resolving that one corner, that brushstroke that really brought the whole thing together — isn’t what’s being talked about.”

Allison Zuckerman is making a new body of work based on the paintings that sold at auction, saying it helps her reclaim her sense of agency.Credit...Lila Barth for The New York Times

While Zuckerman said most of her paintings sold at a solo exhibition in June for $35,000 to $65,000, she couldn’t ignore the auction debacle for “Woman With Her Pet” that same month: Someone tagged her in an Instagram post about the 91 percent price drop while she was on her honeymoon.

Running the business side of a career is rarely taught in art schools. “Grad school for me was about finding my voice,” Zuckerman said. “I wish I had taken a business course.”

Today, she’s making a new body of work about losing control of her paintings in the market. “Reclaiming it is the only way I can have a sense of agency,” she said.

‘The Hardest Year of My Life’

“There are things I should have done with the money I made to protect myself from the current situation but I didn’t,” Lewis said. Recalling a difficult upbringing in Baltimore — “I’ve lived in cars, I come from the hood” — the artist nevertheless considers 2023, when the speculative bubble burst, “the hardest year of my life.”

That year, a collector messaged Lewis saying he was “agonizing” over whether to sell one of the artist’s paintings. “I moved to a 120-year-old house that has some expensive issues and your painting is one of the few sellable things I own,” the collector said in the message viewed by The New York Times.

This painting sold for $212,500 in 2021. Then it resold for $20,160 — a 91% decline in value.

Allison Zuckerman, “Woman With Her Pet”

“If you want to renovate, take out a loan, bro,” Lewis said, recalling the incident. Ultimately the work sold for about $10,000 with fees — $2,500 more than the collector originally paid, according to the artist, but a fraction of what he hoped to make.

Speculation is characteristic of the art market’s long history of buying frenzies that later crash in disillusionment. In the 1980s, a strong Japanese economy and a buoyant American stock market drove art sales to new heights. When 1990 came around, Japan entered its “lost decade” of financial woes and the American stock market crashed; half the contemporary artworks offered in major auctions that fall failed to sell.

Again, in 2014, a group of young artists whom critics called the “Zombie Formalists” because of their retro abstract styles became market darlings. Three years later, many of their paintings sold for a fraction of their peak prices — if they sold at all.

But the spectacular implosion of today’s market for young artists is different. There is a lot more money — and a lot more art — flowing through the system than before. The average price of a contemporary artwork sold at auction in 2021 was nearly $60,000, 40 percent higher than during the “Zombie Formalism” craze, according to the Artnet Price Database.

Georgina Adam, the author of two books on the contemporary art market, said that changes in taste previously dictated the rise and fall of artists over long periods of time. Today, she said, the cycles are shorter and “the reason is speculation.” More than a third of the buyers at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in 2021 were new clients, and Adam said they may have been more interested in turning a profit than becoming lifelong patrons.

For their part, the major auction houses say they are dedicated to fostering a healthy market for emerging artists. “Our team uses primary market data and activity to offer their works with considered estimates in a manner that is responsible, with a long-term view,” a spokeswoman at Phillips, Jaime Israni, said.

Isshaq Ismail said that he’s stopped selling paintings directly from his studio to curb speculation on his artworks.

via Isshaq Ismail Studio

‘You Are Buying a Piece of My Life’

But speculating on artists is different from speculating on stocks and cryptocurrencies. Artists say it feels intensely personal.

“You are buying a piece of my life — a little history of me and my people,” said Lewis, who gives the subject of every portrait a portion of the proceeds from each sale. Such charity is rare in the United States — where living artists, not to mention their subjects, have no legal claim to the proceeds of a sale by a collector or institution.

Lewis and other artists say the experience of navigating the market gauntlet has made them stronger. Ismail, for example, now sells his work exclusively through galleries.

In October, Lewis will have their first gallery show in two years at the Mindy Solomon gallery in Miami. The new works — richly colored images that look as if they were stirred up in a washing machine — were inspired by this recent and tumultuous chapter.

“This is the perfect time to be buying Amani Lewis,” the artist said. “If you’re not buying it, you are going to wish you did.”

Zachary Small is a Times reporter writing about the art world’s relationship to money, politics and technology. More about Zachary Small

Art market update: Searching for terra firma

Collectors can expect auction estimates to come down and galleries to bring lower-priced works to fairs as discretionary sellers wait until market conditions improve.

Detail of Back of Hollywood, 1977, by Ed Ruscha. (macLYON, France. © 2023 Ed Ruscha) 

The art market is still in search of price equilibrium years after coming off the highs of 2021. Buyers continue to expect lower prices at both auctions and galleries. Sellers continue to hold off on discretionary selling until demand regains its prior price elasticity. Moreover, auction estimates will need to ratchet down to more enticing levels, and galleries will need to be more open to negotiating prices. Collectors, meanwhile, are considering works by more historical (well-known and lesser-known) artists along with works by midcareer and established contemporary artists. Current conditions are also providing opportunities for collectors transacting in the middle market ($100,000 to $3 million), where there are broader offerings and greater leeway for negotiation. Lastly, single-owner collections and estates will continue to provide the headlines that lead to temporary spikes in market activity and interest.

The art market correction is adjusting price expectations. 2023 saw the art market’s first contraction year since 2020 — a much-anticipated reassessment of the pandemic era’s indiscriminate and unprecedented highs. In 2023, global auction sales across all fine art categories decreased 27% from 2022, and the average price of an artwork sold at auction decreased by 32%, marking it the largest single-year decline for average sale prices in over seven years.1

Amid this drop, collectors saw a widening discrepancy between buyers’ and sellers’ price expectations. We also saw this supply-demand mismatch play out in the primary market as dealers at this past December’s Art Basel Miami Beach reported fewer sales than the prior year.2 While many works priced in the tens of millions of dollars went home with their respective galleries, most pieces that were offered at or below $100,000 sold fast.

Even the auction houses are responding to a leaner market. Following a 19% decrease in overall auction sales in 2023, Sotheby’s announced it would reduce the fee it charged buyers across all price ranges while instating a formalized fee structure for consignors — including a “success fee” for works sold above their high estimates. Whether the success fee incentivizes auction houses to set increasingly more conservative estimates or the new commission structure increases transaction costs for sellers remains to be seen. Also worth watching: Will the other auction houses follow suit? Only time will tell, but collectors can expect overall auction estimates to come down and galleries to bring lower-priced works to fairs as discretionary sellers wait until market conditions improve.

Auction sales slip
After several years of heady growth, auction sales dropped in 2023 despite a record number of lots brought to auction. Were prices too high, or were buyers fatigued? The art world is pondering the answer.

The number of lots sold at auction in 2019 was 105,030, and total sales were $10 billion; the number of lots sold at auction in 2020 was 96,823, and total sales were $7.2 billion; the number of lots sold at auction in 2021 was 110,586, and total sales were $12.25 billion; the number of lots sold at auction in 2022 was 108,832, and total sales were $13.74 billion; the number of lots sold at auction in 2023 was 114,914, and total sales were $11.16 billion.

Source: ArtTactic as of December 2023

Industry consolidation will continue. This year, collectors should expect to face a shrinking pool of art world players, who will have to work overtime to garner business from buyers and sellers. In early 2024, Hindman Auctions based in Chicago, and Freeman’s, based in Philadelphia, announced they were merging to create Freeman’s | Hindman. The newly formed entity, which boasts the largest auction footprint in the US along with a partnership with UK-based Lyon & Turnbull, will be a formidable player in the middle market. Executives from Freeman’s | Hindman cited “an increasingly competitive auction market”3 as part of the reasoning for joining forces. This merger follows Bonhams' acquisition of four regional auction houses in 2022 and 2023. When not consolidating resources, auction houses, more broadly, are reducing head count. In 2023, Sotheby’s reportedly laid off several senior employees as well as staff from their NFT Art Auction Department. Phillips eliminated senior leaders and regional staff, and online auction platform Artsy had a round of staff cuts. Auction houses will reallocate head count savings into mission-critical investments, such as guarantees, that will help them win competitive lots or reassure cautious collectors in a down market. 

Rate cuts could spur investors. Bank of America Global Research expects three rate cuts by the Federal Reserve over the course of 2024,4 which should alleviate financing pressures on collectors and art businesses. And just as the anticipation of these cuts has fueled the capital markets this year, this bullishness may prompt collectors to increase their discretionary spending on non-interest-bearing assets like art and collectibles, especially in categories that experienced pullbacks last year.5 However, seller confidence and price expectations were shaky in 2023, when the appetite to sell fell by a third from the prior year.6 Lastly, decreasing costs of borrowing may lead some collectors to generate liquidity from their art collections through an art loan, enabling them, for example, to fund broader lifestyle and wealth-building objectives without having to sell art. While the art market typically lags behind other economic indicators, we remain cautiously optimistic about how rate cuts may impact collectors’ behavior in 2024.7

Some collectors might get off the waitlist. For collectors, 2024 should provide opportunities for long-awaited access to works and artists who have been much in demand. Following a quieter 2023 Art Basel Miami Beach, New York galleries are presenting shows with works at lower price points in the first half of 2024. This year’s winter and spring exhibitions, even at mega-galleries, kicked off with a group of fresher faces, including Abdoulaye Konaté at Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Julian Charrière at Sean Kelly, and Huma Bhabha at David Zwirner. For many emerging collectors, this moment represents a chance to be more selective instead of buying from a gallery’s program just to gain access to more coveted works. It could also mean finally getting off a waitlist or even the opportunity to negotiate better terms with a gallery (i.e., asking for a 10% discount, eliminating “buy one, gift one” terms and the like). While we do not expect steep discounts at galleries, now is not the time to pay a premium. Collectors should take advantage of this environment to access works off their wish lists during this quiet period.

Women artists are finally getting their due. Collectors are paying increased attention to the women in the room. Auction sales of works by women artists were up 10% last year to $788 million. This comes on the heels of two big increases in 2022 and 2021, which saw sales grow by 29% and 55% year over year, respectively.8 Although the top three women artists by sales were Yayoi Kusama, Joan Mitchell and Georgia O’Keeffe, some lesser-known, historically important women artists are receiving recent attention. One example is Joan Snyder, whose painting The Stripper sold for nearly half a million dollars during Christie’s fall 2023 auction —300% more than its high estimate. Snyder joins the ranks of other women abstract artists, such as Grace Hartigan, Lynne Drexler and Alice Baber, who worked during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s and have only recently gained significant secondary market momentum. These artists have all reached their auction highs in the last two years.9 Last year, 14 of Hartigan’s works and about a dozen of Baber’s works sold for triple their estimates, and 63 works by Drexler achieved hammer price ratios that were nearly double their estimates.10 Interestingly, these women’s proximity to canonical artists (for example, Hartigan had a close relationship with both Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, and Drexler studied under Hans Hofmann and Robert Motherwell11) may be one of the reasons for their particular appeal in a period of economic uncertainty. The recent emphasis on quality and narrative may continue to drive value-seeking collectors to focus on A+ works by underrepresented historical artists more broadly over B works by canonical artists: The entry price is lower, the market is not yet saturated and the proximity to the establishment still makes it a relatively safe bet.

Women artists finally see the spotlight

Works by women artists have been gaining popularity, with more than twice as many lots sold at auction last year than in 2020. In the meantime, sales have grown more than 120% since then, as value-seeking collectors search for A+ works by artists who have been historically underrepresented.

In 2019, works by 398 women artists were brought to auction and generated $376 million in sales; in 2020, works by 431 women artists were brought to auction and generated $355 million in sales; in 2021, works by 527 women artists were brought to auction and generated $552 million in sales; in 2022, works by 741 women artists were brought to auction and generated $713 million in sales; in 2023, works by 1,018 women artists were brought to auction and generated $788 million in sales. 

Source: ArtTactic as of December 2023

Why is luxury booming?

Dana Prussian, senior vice president and art services specialist, Bank of America Private Bank, talks about how her team works with collections outside of traditional fine art.

Q: Your team has built a reputation for working with top fine art collectors across the country. How do luxury collectibles fit into your offering?

A: When Bank of America first launched Art Services, it was in response to a recognition that art as an asset class often made up a considerable portion of our clients’ balance sheets. In many instances, luxury collectibles are no different. They represent both an allocation and a passion for our clients. While we do not lend against luxury goods, we often work with our clients’ luxury collections via Consignment Services. 

Q: Do you regularly sell luxury assets through Consignment Services?

A: We actually do! It’s become an unexpected but truly enjoyable part of my role in Art Services. Our Consignment Services program applies to many luxury goods as well: We build a full sales strategy for the client, get competitive bids from auction houses, negotiate the terms of the seller’s agreement, help develop a targeted marketing plan and ultimately see the sale through until the end. Historically, we have sold handbags, jewelry, collectible cars, watches and wine for our clients. 

Dana Prussian, senior vice president, art services specialist, Bank of America Private Bank

Q: In what context do you typically see a client sell luxury goods via Consignment Services?

A: We see luxury goods come through for a number of reasons, including estate transfers and divorces, of course, but we’ve also seen a greater influx of interest since the pandemic. During this period, prices of many luxury collectibles skyrocketed. Everything from pandemic boredom to the bull market to low interest rates to buyers and sellers becoming increasingly comfortable with transacting online led to this boom. Many of our clients have wanted to take advantage of that price appreciation and to get access to our relationship with top auction houses through Consignment Services.

Q: Are collectors still transacting online post-pandemic?

A: More than ever. Many collectors, especially younger collectors, are now comfortable with the online platforms that were perfected in 2020 to 2021. In fact, in 2023 luxury collectibles accounted for the largest share of online sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips.12 The category “jewels and watches” accounted for 28% of online-only sales at those auction houses.13 The ability to transact digitally in that way is a key reason why jewels and watches auction sales grew 10% year over year at the houses last year.14

Q: In which luxury categories have you seen the most market movement?

A: Personally, I have always been most interested in the luxury watch and handbag markets, but it also happens that those are two categories that have seen incredibly interesting market movement over the last few years.

Luxury boom
Collectors, whether spurred by pandemic boredom, the bull market, low interest rates or a growing comfort with buying online, ignited a boom in the clothing and accessories and watches and jewelry areas of the luxury market. Since 2020, auction sales in these categories were up 98% to $1.85 billion in 2023.

In 2019, luxury clothing and accessories and watches and jewelry auction sales were $1.04 billion with 19,784 lots sold; in 2020 those auction sales were $.93 billion with 18,334 lots sold; in 2021, those auction sales were $1.47 billion with 22,176 lots sold; in 2022, those auction sales were $1.74 billion with 20,807 lots sold; in 2023, total luxury auction sales were $1.85 billion with 19,733 lots sold.

Source: ArtTactic as of December 2023

Q: What do you mean by that? What’s happening in the luxury watch market?

A: It’s been fascinating to examine the luxury watch market since the beginning of the pandemic. When I talk about luxury watchmaking, I focus primarily on Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet (AP) and Rolex. We were previously in the biggest boom in Swiss luxury watches. Between early 2020 and mid-2022, there was a surge to record-level pricing on the secondary market.15 The demand was consistent with what we saw across the board in art and collectibles: Wealthy consumers were sitting at home with money to spend.

Now the manufacturers are starting to see primary demand cool. The even sharper decline is in the secondary market. The market for secondary Rolex and Patek Philippe watches fell to two-year lows by the end of 2023. The Bloomberg Subdial Watch Index, which tracks prices for the 50 most traded watches by value in the secondary market, was down over 40% between its high in April 2022 and the end of October 2023.16 We are seeing collectors slow down their purchases on the heels of higher interest rates, inflation and geopolitical tensions. Of course, it’s not all bad news. The most in-demand models for these top brands still trade well above retail, no different from the most sought-after blue-chip art.17

Q: Are you seeing a similar dynamic for luxury handbags?

A: The Hermès market, long considered the gold standard of collectible handbags, tells a similar story in its initial surge but has played out differently from the watch market in recent days. During the pandemic, we saw an extraordinary increase in demand. Hermès sold 30% more bags in 2020 than in 2019.18 But unlike most of Hermès’ luxury counterparts last year, the brand beat expectations in 2023. Despite the same economic and geopolitical headwinds as the rest of the luxury sector, Hermès handbag sales in the Americas rose 20% year over year.19 In the primary market, the scarcity mentality — all known as the “Hermès game" — keeps collectors wanting more. In the secondary market, Hermès’ Birkin and Kelly bags regularly trade three times higher than retail, increasing their appeal even further.20 The brand is truly in a category of its own.

Q: What are your favorite buys for men and women in these categories?

A: All my answers are price and condition dependent, but for men, the Patek Philippe Aquanaut or an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar have been popular for quite a while. Both watches strike the right balance of sporty but not overly casual. The ladies’ Patek Phillippe Nautilus is the crème de la crème of women’s watches on the market. For something sportier at a lesser price point, I also love when women sport a men’s Rolex Daytona. For handbags, an Hermès Kelly Sellier 25- or 28-cm in a durable leather, such as Epsom or Togo, and a neutral color like gold, gris or black, will never go out of style. You can wear it for decades and pass it on to the next generation.

Q: Are there any bags that have caught your attention lately?

A: While they are not necessarily top of my wish list, I do love a party trick. For me, the Chanel Lait de Coco milk carton bag definitely falls into that category. So does the Hermès Mini Bolide on Wheels. I love something whimsical and out of the ordinary that not everyone is carrying. Even better? Chanel and Hermès never go out of style.

10 Things Collectors Should Know When It Comes To Private Foundations

By Michael Duffy, head of Art and Collectibles Planning, Private Wealth Strategic Wealth Advisor for Merrill, and Rosemary Ringwald, head of Art Planning, Planning Center of Excellence, Bank of America Private Bank

1) Most family private foundations in the U.S. are not operating foundations. Instead, they are conduit organizations that must distribute 5% of their assets annually to public charities.

2) Private operating foundations, like Crystal Bridges and the Broad Foundation, are treated as public charities that run their own programming with employees on payroll. Donations of art or collectibles to a private operating foundation during your lifetime will provide for a fair market value deduction capped at 30% of your adjusted gross income with a five-year carryover so long as the private operating foundation puts the donated works to a so-called related use.

3) If you make a lifetime gift of art or collectibles to your family’s nonoperating foundation, you will only be able to deduct the lower of your cost basis or fair market value and the donation will be limited to 20% of your adjusted gross income with a five-year carryover of any excess.

4) If you give or bequeath art to your family’s private nonoperating foundation, the assets may be considered “nonrelated use” assets that must be added to the value of your foundation’s endowment or asset base, which will increase the amount of money that it has to distribute annually under the 5% minimum distribution rule. This could put a strain on the private nonoperating foundation’s financial assets and cash flow.

5) If fine art and collectibles are held by your family’s nonoperating foundation, the art and collectibles may have to be reappraised every year to compute the proper 5% minimum distribution amount. 

6) Consider the recurring costs of annual appraisals, property and casualty insurance, storage, etc., which could have a significant impact on your nonoperating foundation’s cash flow and balance sheet.

7) If you give your art and collectibles to your family’s nonoperating foundation, the foundation must take possession of those art and collectibles.  

8) You (and/or anyone in your immediate family) cannot lease back the art you donated to your family’s nonoperating foundation because it would violate private foundation self-dealing rules, which could trigger excise taxes and/or your foundation losing its tax-exempt status.

9) Private nonoperating foundations are prohibited from making risky investments that would jeopardize their ability to carry out their exempt purposes. Excise taxes could apply to both the foundation and the foundation manager if purchased and deemed too risky. 

10) However, investments that are transferred by gift to the foundation are exempt from the tax on jeopardizing investments provided the donor receives nothing from the foundation in exchange for their donation. 

Curator's Corner

Jennifer S. Brown, curator of Bank of America’s corporate collection, discusses Ed Ruscha’s Clock Speed (1986), and why it’s a compelling — and important — representation of the artist’s experience and vision.

This monumental oil and enamel on canvas, Clock Speed 21 by Ed Ruscha, was painted in 1986, the same year it was added to the collection of Security Pacific, a bank acquired by Bank of America in 1992.

As an undergraduate art student in the late 1950s, Ruscha donned various creative hats, working as a commercial illustrator, sign painter, graphic designer and typesetter at an advertising agency. These diverse roles left an indelible mark on his artistic style, influenced in part by the groundbreaking work of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, both of whom embraced found objects and everyday imagery, forever changing the trajectory of American contemporary art.

In an era before the internet and social media, Ruscha’s playful compositions reflect the relentless influx of mass media-fed images and information. His 1962 painting Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights was a standout in the “New Paintings of Common Objects” exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum alongside works by luminaries such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. This groundbreaking exhibition is often said to the beginning in America of what we now recognize as pop art.

Jennifer S. Brown, curator, Bank of America art collection

Ruscha’s visual language often included words as images, but by the 1980s, he also depicted symbols and familiar objects against evocative backgrounds, such as the flag against the gridded background in Clock Speed. Some say they see a flag reflected in the windows of a high-rise building. As a Los Angeles native, I see the flag fluttering almost collagelike against the grid of the city streetlights.

For Ruscha, the essence was to, in his own words, “successfully overlap two unlike ideas.” Clock Speed encapsulates this fusion, inviting viewers to unravel layers of meaning within its dynamic composition. It’s a visual symphony that transcends time and beckons viewers to engage with its dynamic composition, inviting a nuanced exploration of its layered meanings.

Bank of America is the national sponsor of ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN, recently on view at the Museum of Modern Art and opening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on April 7.

Bank of America in the art world

Each year, Bank of America provides funding for art and cultural exhibitions as well as grants for art restoration projects. Here are highlights of the bank’s exhibition sponsorships and grant recipients.

Family Group with Newspaper (1936) 22 is one of the photographs by the renowned artist James Van Der Zee featured in the exhibition “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Funding for the conservation of five Van Der Zee photographs in the newly opened exhibition was provided by a grant from the Bank of America Conservation Project. See below for details.

A Sharp Downturn in the Art Market

We explore how a slowdown is affecting a rising generation of artists.

Amani Lewis with the painting “Galatians 6:2 — the carriers.” 

By Zachary Small

I cover the worlds of art and money.

As art became a serious business over the last few decades, with record multimillion-dollar sales eclipsing one another, it seemed as though values could just rise in perpetuity. But this year has been a reality check.

High-end art sales have slumped. Sellers have withdrawn prominent works from major auctions at the last minute, for fear of jeopardizing artists’ markets. More than a dozen galleries have closed in Manhattan. Layoffs have begun to creep through the $65 billion industry, as one of its largest companies, Christie’s, saw revenue plunge. It took in $2.1 billion from auctions in the first six months of this year, down from $4.1 billion during the same period in 2022.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll explore some reasons the art business has slowed, and how it’s affecting a rising generation of artists.

The high point

Jaws dropped on a November evening in 2022, when collectors bought a record $1.5 billion worth of paintings in a single night at the Christie’s auction house. Buyers snapped up a parade of masterpieces by artists including Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne and Gustav Klimt — all from the collection of the Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen.

That frenzied night seemed to forecast a booming future for an industry that had been getting hotter by the year. But it actually marked the peak of the market.

High interest rates and inflation bear some responsibility for the slowdown. Collectors who view artworks as financial assets have flinched at the rising costs of doing business and the diminished ability to get favorable loans to buy paintings they hope will appreciate in value. The supply of modern masterpieces has also decreased as potential sellers sit on their investments until economic conditions improve for the ultrawealthy.

Hesitation breeds uncertainty and doubt — dangerous emotions in an industry prone to mood swings. The more collectors fear a downturn, the more likely it becomes.

Allison Zuckerman’s “Woman With Her Pet.” Allison Zuckerman Studio and Kravets Wehby Gallery

A pipeline problem

You could be excused for thinking the art world was still flying high. A jet-set crowd of wealthy collectors and influencers has shuttled around the world this summer from Venetian palazzos to Swiss chalets, stopping to party in Tokyo before ending their grand tour in the mountains of Aspen, Colo., for an art fair where participants enjoyed cocktails at a home decorated with an Ed Ruscha painting of the Rocky Mountains that boldly exclaims, “IT’S RIDICULOUS.”

When you’ve been to enough of these fancy shindigs, you start to notice who’s missing: young artists.

Four months ago, I started compiling a list of promising artists who found market success early — many in their mid-20s and fresh out of graduate school. Collectors had purchased their still-wet paintings during the pandemic and flipped them for profit at auction months later. The pictures often sold for six or seven times their estimates at auction, fetching $150,000, $200,000 and sometimes more.

Decades ago, this kind of speculation could get a collector blacklisted in the art world. Artists and dealers wanted to create stable markets, steadily build careers and attract museums that would add their works to collections. But as the wealthy began to use paintings as investments, speculators flooded the market.

The market for young artists reached its peak in 2021, when collectors spent nearly $712 million on their works at auction. Last year, the market lost nearly a third of its value — and it continues to shrink. In the first half of this year, sales for this group dropped another 39 percent.

The calamitous fall

My colleague Julia Halperin and I spoke with a group of devastated younger artists. Powerless to stop these auctions, some watched in tears as the markets for their works declined. One painting, by the Ghanaian artist Emmanuel Taku, sold at auction in 2021 for $189,000. When it was put up for auction again earlier this year, its price plunged to just $10,160.

“You are buying a piece of my life — a little history of me and my people,” said the artist Amani Lewis, whose income fell by about 75 percent as the auction world’s failures rippled into studios and galleries, where artists make most of their sales.

Those who have experienced the churn hope it’s made them stronger. But they also remain frustrated by a system that treats paintings as commodities for speculation.

By the Numbers: The Art Market Has Fallen Back Down to Earth

Find out exactly how much the art market contracted last year.

Sotheby's auctioneer Oliver Barker takes bids during Sotheby's auction of Emily Fisher Landau collection in New York City on November 8, 2023. Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images.

Artnet News March 4, 2024

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 number of women among the 100 top-selling fine artists at auction in 2023—tied with 2022 as the largest proportion we’ve ever recorded.

The average price (in USD) of a fine artwork sold at auction last year, down almost 16 percent from 2022.

The revenue (in USD) from fine art auction sales in China last year. While that figure represents a 13 percent increase over 2022, it is the second lowest total the country has seen in a decade.

The dip in total fine art sales generated by the Big Three auction houses—Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips—year over year.

The number of artists who made their auction debuts at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips last year. Only 2.2 percent of them failed to find a buyer on their debut.

The total (in USD) spent on fine art at auction in 2023—down 12.7 percent year over year.

The sell-through rate for fine art at auction in 2023—higher than in any year in the past 10 years except 2021 and 2022.

The decline in revenue generated by the highest-end artworks at auction. Sales of art valued at more than $10 million dropped by just under $2 billion last year.

The dip in total auction sales of work by ultra-contemporary artists (those born after 1974) between 2022 and 2023.

The revenue (in USD) from online-only sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips, Bonhams, and Artnet Auctions last year—down 12 percent from 2022.