TEFAF Art Market Update by Dr Clare McAndrew

March 2011 - New: TEFAF Art Market Update by Dr Clare McAndrew! Every other month TEFAF brings you the latest global art market news. Dr Clare McAndrew is the author of TEFAF's latest art market report, 'The Global Art Market in 2010: Crisis and Recovery'. She is a cultural economist who specializes in the fine and decorative art market, and the founder of Arts Economics. To order the report go to www.tefaf.com (Shop) . Art Market Report: A New Global Landscape The first decade of the 21st century has been a period of flux in the art and antiques market. After a period of boom and bust, the market emerged in 2010 with a radically different global layout, underpinned by fundamental shifts in its hierarchy of power. The market soared to its highest-ever recorded total of €48 billion in 2007, however fortunes turned in 2008, and the next two years were ones of crisis and recovery for the art trade. The global economic downturn strongly affected personal wealth, and spending in most markets contracted, especially in the US and Europe. In 2009 the global market fell 33% to €28 billion, the biggest decline since its previous recession in the early 1990s. Fig.1 Global Art Market Share (by Value) 2006 / source: Arts Economics, 2011 Wealth shifts East The art market showed its true resilience in 2010 however, advancing in value by 51% to €43 billion. This recovery was driven by the US and China, while European growth was much more sluggish. The recovery in 2010 was also driven by strong spending by Chinese art buyers as the geographical distribution of wealth continues to shift East. (The numbers of high net worth individuals in Asia is now equivalent to Europe, and their wealth is greater). China takes second place While markets such as the US and UK were going through a period of recovery in 2010, China continued to boom, with its strongest year ever, emerging as the second largest market worldwide, over taking the UK for this first time. The size of the Chinese art and antiques market more than doubled in value from 2009 to 2010 reaching a huge €9.8 billion and a 23% global share. The US still dominated with 34%, but its margin has narrowed significantly in recent years. Fig.2 Global Art Market Share (by Value) 2010 / source: Arts Economics, 2011 Looking forward New buyers and sellers from China and other emerging markets have helped to protect the art market from some of the downside risk it would have been subject to had it still been reliant primarily on the UK, US and other mature European markets, and undoubtedly strengthened and accelerated its recovery. Looking forward, wealth and art buying remain highly concentrated in a very small fraction of China's population which is a strong indicator for the potential future growth in art sales. When the new middle classes come on stream at the end of this decade another boom in sales is likely, and competition for share of this expanding market will intensify even more. TEFAF supports international cancer research Since 2004 TEFAF Maastricht has supported international cancer research by a TEFAF Chair of Oncology at Maastricht University Medical Centre.