“The report of my death was an exaggeration,” Mark Twain said in 1897, replying to queries from American reporters who were investigating reports of Twain’s death on a visit to England. It’s the same with the art world: troughs inevitably follow peaks, and doomsayers proclaim the end of the market. 2025 had been unexciting, when it was not horrendous (see my post from three months ago), and the current economic uncertainty had everyone feeling jittery.
What a difference a few months make. The November-December auctions did well across the board. Record prices for paintings by Suzanne Valadon and Frieda Kahlo. An auction of Picasso ceramics where almost every lot doubled its estimate. A single-artist sale of David Hockney prints based on his iPad drawings that absolutely shot the lights out, with individual prints bringing well into six figures. Old Master prints are selling well. It looks like happy days are here again.
The fall sales are a lead-in to the annual art circus in Miami Beach. Miami Basel is most prestigious of the art fairs in December, but there are a host of satellite art fairs in that city. The general public can visit Miami Basel on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but major collectors and celebrities get in three days earlier, and most of the big sales are made before the fair opens its doors to mere hoi polloi.
Speaking to several friends who exhibited at one of the Miami fairs, I found that most of them had done very well. Having to remove sold paintings and rehang your booth with paintings you were holding in reserve always brings joy to a dealer’s heart. One dealer who sold 11 paintings at Miami Basel told me, “It was great. We had to completely rehang our booth during the run of the show. I noticed several other dealers having to rehang their booths as well, and it didn’t seem to be the old dealer trick of hanging new works to pretend that you had sold what had been up on opening night.”
There are always complaints from dealers who did not do well, but the general mood of the dealers was happy. Things have quieted down for the rest of the month, but dealers in 19th and 20th-century American art are eagerly awaiting the New York auctions that are timed to coincide with the Winter Show in late January. There are two major collections going off at Christie’s, and their results will be either a major buzzkill or a confirmation that the market is currently strong.
There have been recent articles in the New York Times and the art press about how New York City is just too expensive a place to have a gallery anymore, but dealers can always get creative, whether organizing pop-up shows or even showing out of their apartments. But such complaints are always being made. 31 years ago, in the aftermath of a recession that had devastated the art market, five young dealers decided to rent hotel rooms at the Gramercy Hotel in New York for a weekend and to exhibit artworks leaning against walls and sitting on beds. They contacted everyone on their mailing lists, and the Gramercy International Art Fair was born. Five years later, in 1999, a much-expanded version, retitled The Armory Show, was being held at the 69th Regiment Armory. The show is still running, now at the Javits Center.
Art prices peak and crash, the market adjusts to the new price structure, and the buying and selling of art goes on. Sometimes, however, such selling needs a little help. At Sotheby’s in Paris on December 3, a tiny oil sketch by Pierre Renoir sold for $56,260, including premium.
Pierre Renoir. Head of a Child (Fragment), c. 1890
Photo courtesy Sotheby’sThe 2-1/2 x 2-1/4-inch fragment of a painting was undoubtedly helped by its over-the-top framing. The art dealer David Findlay Sr. used to say, “A good frame will make a gentleman out of a rascal.” This frame fulfilled its mission.
Wishing you a happy and healthy 2026.
