The year trust became the currency in the art market

Collectors looking for accountability are turning to smaller dealers, says Sarah Ryan of New Blood Art

Portrait of artist Francis Bacon
(Image credit: Raphael GAILLARDE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

In 2024, nearly $7.7 billion less was spent on art than the year before, that’s a 12% drop in global sales, according to the latest Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report. Despite this, the overall number of transactions increased by 3%.

So activity and appetite haven’t fallen, but increased. Spending is down, yes, but participation is up.

The market isn’t shrinking, it’s shifting. Buyers are buying differently. The market is actually moving fast. Not collapsing. Reconfiguring.

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The 12% global decline is largely driven by China’s 31% drop. A $3.77 billion contraction in one region accounts for nearly half the total global fall.

Perhaps this is an indictment on the zeitgeist more generally – culturally, we’re less accountable. There’s more anonymity, less traceability. People can write a terrible comment online and then disappear. The shift is psychological, relational. It’s not just the market, it’s the culture.

Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips have already been scaling back. Christie’s cancelled its spring Hong Kong auction in 2024. Sotheby’s and Phillips have reduced the size and ambition of their China-based sales. Several Western auction houses are shifting their focus back to New York, London, and Paris, where enforcement is clearer and buyer confidence is stronger.

Unless something changes structurally in China, it’s likely that major Western houses will keep retreating from the market.

The art market thrives on discretion – prices, buyers, terms – much of it stays hidden. That makes it easier for buyers to overcommit, delay payment, disappear, or even use non-payment as a post-sale tactic.

Buyers’ behaviour is changing

Happily, and it strikes me this is no coincidence, there’s a recalibration happening lower down the market, where relationship remains at the centre: more sales at lower price points, more activity in quieter corners.

Sales of work under £5,000 are up 13%. Smaller dealers – those with annual turnover under $250,000 – saw a 17% rise. And that figure matters, because it’s structurally trustworthy. These are relationship-led transactions: the kind where you agree to the deal, transfer the money, and the work changes hands. There’s little scope for non-payment. The relationship itself holds the exchange.

If the numbers can be trusted, there’s a shift happening – more young and new buyers are entering the market, and they’re not chasing big names or big prices. They’re finding work in smaller spaces, with emerging artists, through personal relationships and quieter transactions. The energy is moving away from spectacle and towards substance.

At the top end, the landscape is radically shifting. Take Marlborough Gallery, who closed in 2024 after nearly 80 years – not just a big gallery, but one known for exactly what the market claims to value now: long-term relationships, depth, trust, intimacy. And still, it didn’t survive.

Founded in 1946, Marlborough helped shape post-war British art. It represented Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Henry Moore, Frank Auerbach. Its legacy is inseparable from the evolution of modern British painting.

What distinguished Marlborough was its commitment to personal relationships with artists. This wasn’t a depersonalised gallery chain, it was a gallery built on trust and continuity. That it couldn’t sustain itself in today’s market points to something deeper: a structural shift in how art is sold, and what is seen as viable.

Marlborough’s roster included not only the giants, but also contemporary artists like Maggi Hambling and Catherine Goodman. Just months before closing, they signed Lorena Levi – an emerging artist we introduced to the market. They weren’t winding down. They were reaching forward.

Marlborough’s closure isn’t just one gallery shutting its doors. It marks a broader transformation. The market is shifting toward more intimate, relationship-based transactions – often at lower price points and outside traditional gallery systems. That decentralisation challenges legacy structures and forces a reassessment of how art is bought, sold, and valued.

In this context, Marlborough’s end becomes a marker of change. Even the most established institutions must adapt, or risk being left behind. Maybe some got too big. Maybe they lost the human thread.

What’s clear, whatever the reason, is that the momentum is now elsewhere. With smaller dealers. Younger artists. Quieter transactions. People want something human. And maybe it’s no surprise that people are turning to smaller dealers, quieter purchases, places where they can shake someone’s hand. Because when the relationship disappears, anonymity creates space for people to act without accountability. And as we move headlong into an AI-shaped world, that desire may only grow.


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Sarah Ryan writes about alternative investments for MoneyWeek. She is the founder and director of New Blood Art, an innovative online gallery for exceptional early-career artists, which helps to make collecting original fine art accessible to more people. 


Many of the artists Sarah has featured have gone on to perform exceptionally well commercially, earning her a reputation among fans of alternative investments.


Sarah has a degree in fine art from London Metropolitan University and a PGCE in art education from Cambridge University and previously worked as a teacher.


Sarah also holds a diploma in integrative counselling & psychotherapy from the University of Roehampton, and is a practising psychotherapist.