The

art

market

is

showing

signs

of

revival

—

but

experts

urge

caution

Meanwhile, auction numbers tell, at best, half the story as the numbers do not incorporate gallery sales, which are not public. And within the gallery sector, results again are mixed. “It’s not a straightforward picture,” says Jo Stella-Sawicka, a partner at Goodman Gallery. 

Despite a number of high-end sales reported from art fairs this year, Stella-Sawicka notes that “lots of galleries are relying on their secondary market sales at the moment,” namely the reselling of work generally by established 20th-century artists. 

The art market has not given up on its primary business, but its intermediaries acknowledge that pricing needs to be conservative and that taste is no longer in favour of the challenging, bright young things. Stella-Sawicka reports sales between £90,000 and £300,000 from Goodman’s ongoing London show of the 78-year-old British-Caribbean painter Winston Branch and says that “museums and private collectors are engaged with historically significant figures.”