For young contemporary artists and the smaller galleries that support them, the art market’s correction has turned a period of rapid price rises into a test of whether buyers will return at lower valuations. Bank of America has identified Young Contemporary artists and small and mid-tier galleries as the market’s most visible points of weakness.
The boom from 2019 to 2022 was fuelled by speculation, mega-galleries, art fairs and auction houses, with works bought at gallery prices and resold within months for multiples of their first price. Marc Glimcher, the chief executive of Pace Gallery, later cited rising interest rates, global instability, tax changes and logistics costs as the company concluded it had to adapt to changed conditions.
Giles Peppiatt, a veteran dealer and auctioneer who launched Bonhams’ Modern and Contemporary African Art department in 2006, has watched the shift from close quarters. He said the contemporary market was “incredibly strong from about 2019 to 2022, and then there was a rather brutal correction”.
Works by artists in their twenties and thirties were among the clearest expression of the frenzy. Between 2020 and 2022, paintings bought from galleries were reaching auction within months, selling for multiples of their original price.
The African market’s numbers followed the same arc. Auction sales of modern and contemporary African artists reached $87.2m in 2022, eased to $79.8m in 2023 and then fell 45% to $43.9m in 2024, according to ArtTactic.
Peppiatt said artists whose work had fetched hundreds of thousands in 2022 and 2023 were now selling for probably half that.
Avery Singer, the contemporary painter, has provided one of the market’s starkest examples. Her painting Kundry sold for $2.1 million in 2022. In May 2025, it was offered again with an estimate of $1.4 million to $1.8 million, then withdrawn unsold.
On 7 October 2026, Sotheby’s New York offered Kundry in its Contemporary Curated sale with an estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. It sold for $243,200, against its $2.1 million result in 2022, a 91 percent lower hammer price.
The retrenchment has reached the institutions built around a more expansive market. Tiwani Contemporary closed its Cork Street space in May after 15 years, while its founder, Maria Varnava, cited “the shifting landscape of the London art market”. The gallery also paused its operations in Lagos.
Stephen Friedman Gallery closed in February after entering administration. Sotheby’s ended dedicated African sales in London in 2024.
The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair’s London edition closed at Somerset House on 18 October, following its 14th showing since its 2013 debut. It had 42 exhibitors in 2026, down from more than 60 in 2024 and over 50 in 2025. Its Marrakech edition fell from 30 galleries in 2025 to 22 in February 2026.
At Bonhams in London on 21 October, the contrast between modern and contemporary work was on view in a rare cast of Ben Enwonwu’s Anyanwu, estimated at £400,000 to £600,000 ($533,000 to $800,000). Enwonwu, a modern Nigerian sculptor, made a work for which only about three other large casts are known globally, including one at the UN General Assembly and others in museums in Lagos and Harare.
Peppiatt said the modern market, covering artists active between roughly 1945 and 1990, “is as strong now as it’s ever been”. The distinction has become central to a market divided between established work and younger artists whose prices rose fastest during the boom.
Pace Gallery has faced its own accounting of the change. Its turnover was $67.69 million in 2024, a 35.5 percent drop from 2023, and it recorded a pre-tax loss of $2,429 after a $6.8 million profit for 2023. In June, the gallery put its London property on the market, and its Chelsea headquarters announced it was seeking tenants for part of the space.
The gallery said its filing reflected “a continuation of the sector-wide contraction in global and UK art markets as well as a continued reluctance by some clients to buy which became most pronounced in 2024 and continued through 2025 and into 2026”. Glimcher told The Appraisal that by early 2026 Pace was convinced that “we needed to make real change in the structure of the business to adapt to the new reality”.
There were signs of firmer ground in 2025. Global auction growth reached 11.1%, and dealers turning over more than $10 million returned to growth. The share of collectors planning to sell also fell from 55% to 25% in a single year.
Drew Watson, Head of Art Services at Bank of America, described the shift in March 2026: “What we saw in 2025 was not a return to speculation, but a return to discipline”. Whether that discipline stabilises contemporary prices remains unclear. The modern market, at least, has so far offered a different answer from the overheated trade in recent work.
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