Private Art Market Dwarfs Auctions, ARTnews Says

An article in the May issue of ARTnews estimates that private art sales around the world total between $25 billion and $30 billion annually — or roughly three times the value of art sales by the two major auction houses, Christie's and Sotheby's. (The auction houses together sold about $9 billion of art last year.) ARTnews surveyed dealers, collectors, auctioneers, and art advisors. The magazine notes that the market has been fueled by demand from Russian, Asian, and Middle Eastern buyers. "There are several dozen galleries doing over $100 million each," a director of the Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago, Paul Gray, said.