How She Builds It

This year, 2026, marks the 10^th anniversary of the Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report, researched and written by Dr. Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics. Each year, the report analyses the global art market across key market segments, including galleries and dealers, auction houses, and art fairs, along with buyer behavior, global wealth changes, and ever-changing economic conditions. UBS asked Dr. McAndrew about what has changed during her decade behind the scenes of the most comprehensive data-driven overview of the art market.

How has the Art Market Report evolved since the first edition, and what major shifts have you observed over the past decade?

It has been a truly fascinating time to observe and record the market, with more changes in the last 20 years than possibly 100 years before that. The market has obviously grown a lot in size, and a big part of that has been its increasing global diversity. In the 1980s and 1990s, the vast majority of art sales were concentrated in the US and Europe. But from the early 2000s onwards, the expansion in Asia — particularly the rapid growth of the Chinese market — really changed both the structure and the scale of the market. So today I’m measuring sales and activity across a much wider range of markets than I was 10 or 20 years ago. The way sales are made has also shifted quite fundamentally. In the past, auction houses operated more like wholesalers to dealers, whereas now both auctions and galleries are active in direct and private sales. It has been amazing to watch and chart the rise of a much more event‑driven market, with major art fairs becoming key moments in the sales cycle and central to how many galleries do business. And more recently, particularly since the pandemic, there’s been a big increase in e‑commerce.

What initially drew you to analysing the art market, and what continues to motivate you in this work?

Another part of the evolution has been the kinds of data we can access. While there have been improvements in the availability of data in some areas, and in the tools and metrics we have to collect and analyze it, a lot of the information that’s needed to properly measure the art market still sits in the private sphere. Because of that, a large share of the data in the report comes from original, primary research that I carry out each year through surveys, interviews, and other direct conversations with people working in the market. That does make the research more complex to compile, because it always requires a human element, and trying to get an understanding of the context behind the numbers. But in many ways, that’s also what makes it the most interesting and rewarding part of the work for me personally. Ultimately, good research isn’t just about the data — it’s also about asking the right questions.

The art trade needs and appreciates access to these industry‑wide statistics, whether it’s to help them in benchmarking their performance, encourage new buyers or support the industry. The reports started out as a means to provide the trade with key industry stats they could use to inform stakeholders who needed answers on things like market size, employment, and economic impact. I’ve had some helpful feedback over the years from the auction houses, dealers, gallery associations, and others about the kind of information they really need, so we’re always trying to keep it relevant and useful.

If you could highlight one misconception people often have about the art market, what would it be?

I think one of the biggest is that you need to spend a lot of money to be involved in the art market or to buy something really “good”. This is perpetuated a bit by the fact that most or all of what the media reports on is the multi-million dollar sums paid for a small number of really high-priced artists. New buyers are led to believe that the art market is out of their reach, and that you can only get a quality work of art if you have a budget of over USD 1 million for example, when in fact there are still so many other less publicized artists and works available at much lower prices. It’s actually a really democratic market with a place for so many different interests, tastes , and budgets. The reality is that despite the amount of attention the very top of the market gets, most transactions and the day to day business of most businesses in the art market are at much lower prices: less than 0.5% of the transactions at fine art auctions last year were for prices over USD 1 million and 95% were less than USD 50,000, including 77% for less than USD 5,000.