Despite Sluggish sales in New York and London this past spring, the global art market has expanded exponentially in recent decades. In just six categories—Old Masters, Impressionist and modern, postwar and contemporary, 19th-century European, American, and “other”—auction sales have grown from $43 million in 1970 to $9.3 billion in 2015. During that same 45-year period, we have also seen a marked change in taste when it comes to what collectors buy at auction, with sales of postwar and contemporary art, which accounted for just 4 percent of the market with some $2 million in sales in 1970, ballooning to $3.8 billion, or 41 percent market share, in 2015. Old Masters has seen the most significant market-share drop: from 38 percent in 1970 to just 5 percent in 2015, while Impressionist and modern has remained more stable, with 44 percent of the market share in 1970 and 34 percent last year.
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