Eden Xu-Martinez, a collector and art administration professional, has built a personal collection centered on the accessibility and intimacy of prints. Her journey into collecting was catalyzed by a lithography course at Columbia University and a profound encounter with a Louise Bourgeois print, which shifted her perspective on the medium from mere reproduction to a deeply personal form of artistic expression.
A rare, clamshell-shaped VOLU Dining Pavilion designed by architect Zaha Hadid and Patrick Schumacher is heading to auction at Hermitage Fine Art in Monaco. The prefabricated outdoor structure, originally created for the 2015 Design Miami fair, is expected to fetch between €900,000 and €1.1 million. This marks only the second time a completed edition of this pavilion has been offered at auction.
Latin American Art: Structural Growth between Market and Institutions
Latin American contemporary art is experiencing structural growth and increased global visibility between 2024 and 2026, moving beyond speculative trends toward deep-seated institutional legitimacy. This shift is highlighted by the prominent inclusion of regional artists in major international platforms, most notably the 2026 Venice Biennale and the Pinault Collection. Key figures such as Rosanna Paulino, Adriana Varejão, and Paulo Nazareth are leading this movement, utilizing diverse media to explore themes of post-colonialism, racial violence, and ecological memory.
A painting by Raja Ravi Varma titled 'Yashoda and Krishna' sold for $17.9 million at a Saffronart auction in Delhi, setting a new auction record for an Indian painting. The buyer was pharmaceutical billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, founder of the Serum Institute of India.
Street art pioneer Shepard Fairey has released a collaborative screen print titled "Modular Frequency" in partnership with Portuguese artist Add Fuel (Diogo Machado). The limited-edition work, produced by Obey Giant Studios, features a fusion of Fairey’s signature propaganda-style aesthetics with Add Fuel’s contemporary take on traditional tile patterns. The hand-signed and numbered edition is currently being offered through New Union Gallery on the Artsy platform.
The Indian modern art market has reached a significant milestone as a 19th-century oil painting by Raja Ravi Varma sold for nearly $18 million at auction. The sale of 'Yashoda and Krishna' reportedly involved high-profile Indian tycoons from the pharmaceutical and consumer industries acting as both buyers and sellers, signaling a robust domestic appetite for blue-chip Indian masterpieces.
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Hong Kong’s art market is signaling a cautious recovery in 2026 as the city prepares for its marquee Art Week. Despite macroeconomic improvements in real estate and equities, the sector is grappling with significant logistical hurdles caused by the US–Israel–Iran War. Shipping costs between Europe and China have surged by 30%, leading to the cancellation of the International Antiques Fair and the withdrawal of high-profile delegations like the Sharjah Art Foundation.
Two rare original watercolor illustrations for Rudyard Kipling’s 1903 edition of The Jungle Book were rediscovered in a London family home and sold at Roseberys auction house for a combined £130,480 ($174,940). Created by twin brothers Edward Julius and Charles Maurice Detmold, the works—titled Mowgli and Bagheera and The Cold Lairs—had been hanging unassumingly for decades. The sale price significantly exceeded expectations, with the Mowgli illustration alone fetching more than four times its high estimate.
Frieze Los Angeles opened its 2026 edition at the Santa Monica Airport with a strong showing of community spirit and rapid sales during the VIP preview. Following a difficult year marked by local wildfires, the fair has seen a surge in institutional acquisitions and commercial success for both emerging local talent and established international figures. Notable early transactions included a $2.8 million sale of a Njideka Akunyili Crosby work by David Zwirner and a complete sell-out of Erica Mahinay’s paintings at Make Room gallery.
A new report from UBS and Art Basel, authored by Dr. Clare McAndrew, reveals that the global art market reached an estimated $67.8 billion in 2023, marking a 4% increase from the previous year. The growth was primarily driven by the high-end segment, with sales over $10 million rising by 11%, while the lower and middle markets experienced a decline.
Painter Louis Fratino has joined the mega-gallery David Zwirner, adding the powerhouse to his existing representation by Berlin's Galerie Neu and New York's Sikkema Malloy Jenkins. This multi-gallery arrangement is a departure from the typical practice of artists severing ties with smaller galleries when aligning with a global giant.
The Winter Show at New York's Park Avenue Armory features a standout booth by the gallery French and Company, presenting a darkly themed collection. The eclectic offerings include Old Master still lifes by Willem Kalf and Willem Claesz Heda, a Victorian ceramic peacock, a 1979 painting by Susan Rothenberg, and a "horror wall" with works like Pasko Vucetic's *Hatred and Madness* and Wilhelm Trübner's *A Gorgon's Head*, all curated by the gallery's Henry Zimet.
Sotheby's is launching its inaugural Old Masters Week at its new Breuer building location in New York with a special exhibition of works heading to auction. The centerpiece is the 'cimasa' (top panel) of Pietro Perugino's 'Decemviri Altarpiece' (1495), on an exceptional loan from Italy's National Gallery of Umbria and traveling outside Italy for the first time. After its display at Sotheby's, the panel will be exhibited at the Morgan Library and Museum alongside Giovanni Bellini's newly restored 'Pietà' (c. 1470), which is also making its U.S. debut.
The National Portrait Gallery in London has acquired the only surviving photographs of 19th-century mathematician Ada Lovelace, a group of three daguerreotypes that were originally offered at Bonhams in June 2025 with an estimate of £80,000 to £120,000. The lot was withdrawn from auction and the museum secured it via a private treaty sale, a confidential negotiation process that allows institutions to purchase significant artworks directly from private owners. Two of the daguerreotypes were taken by French photographer Antoine Claudet around 1843, the year Lovelace published her foundational paper on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, while the third, by an unknown photographer, reproduces an 1852 portrait by Henry Wyndham Phillips showing Lovelace near the end of her life.
The global art market continued to contract in 2025, with prominent galleries such as Blum, Clearing, Sperone Westwater, Tilton, Kasmin, TJ Boulting, Project Native Informant, Nir Altman, and Altman Siegel closing due to challenging macroeconomic conditions. However, a rebound emerged at the top end by autumn, driven by Sotheby's white-glove sale of the Pauline Karpidas collection, strong VVIP sales at Art Basel Paris, and New York's November auctions, where Klimt's *Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer* (1914-16) sold for $236.3 million and Frida Kahlo's *El Sueño (la cama)* (1940) for $54.7 million. Christie's and Sotheby's reported increased sales from 2024, with second-half auctions up 26% year-on-year, though recovery remains uneven and concentrated in classic secondary-market tastes.
In 2025, several established art fairs were cancelled or postponed, including the Art Dealers Association of America's Art Show in Manhattan, Taipei Dangdai, Photofairs Hong Kong, and the India Art Fair's Mumbai expo. Amid these retrenchments, a wave of smaller, alternative art fairs emerged in cities like New York, Paris, and the Berkshires, organized by gallerists and curators seeking new formulas focused on coalition, affordability, and intimacy. Examples include Esther in Manhattan (co-founded by Margot Samel and Olga Temnikova), the Arrival Art Fair in North Adams (co-founded by Yng-Ru Chen, Crystalle Lacouture, and Sarah Galender Meyer), 7 rue Froissart in Paris (organized by Sara Maria Salamone and Brigitte Mulholland), and Post-Fair in Santa Monica (founded by Chris Sharp).
The art market experienced a turbulent 2025, beginning with a 12% decline in sales from 2024, following a 3% drop in 2023, as reported by the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report. Major auction houses Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips saw average sales fall 6% in the first half of the year. However, the market rebounded by autumn, with strong sales at London and Paris art fairs and a 15% year-on-year increase in auction sales at the three main houses by December, according to Pi-eX. Key events included Sotheby’s failed sale of Alberto Giacometti’s *Grand tête mince* in May, followed by a record-breaking $236 million sale of Gustav Klimt’s *Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer* in November, and a $31.4 million record for François-Xavier Lalanne’s *Hippopotame Bar*.