About The Underbidder
An insider perspective on artists, prices, and the trends shaping the art market. For New Zealand and Australian collectors who want to know what to buy - and how much to bid.
There are plenty of thoughtful voices writing about technique, theory, and art history. What interests me more is how the art market behaves in practice: what prices are being paid, what collectors are buying, and what the data tells us about artists, categories, and trends.
While many publications analyse the global art market, there remains relatively limited coverage focused specifically on New Zealand and Australia. That gap, and the opportunity it presents for collectors, is the reason The Underbidder exists.
The name comes from the idea of the underbidder: the collector who understands value, knows when enthusiasm is justified, and knows when to stop bidding. In a market that can often feel opaque or emotional, The Underbidder is about understanding the value of art before the hammer falls.
With that perspective, The Underbidder is written for two audiences: collectors, and the wider art industry.
For Collectors
The Underbidder is written for collectors, particularly those early in their collecting journey, who want clearer, more practical insight into the market.
Each edition aims to make the art market more accessible by:
Explaining artists and their work in plain language
Exploring price points, momentum, and durability
Sharing market-level trends drawn from auction data
Offering buying ideas across subject, style, medium, and period
The goal isn’t to tell you what to like, but to help you understand what to buy and how much to bid.
For the Industry
Alongside the collector focus, The Underbidder provides independent, data-driven analysis of the secondary market.
By combining results across leading auction houses, the newsletter offers an unbiased view of how the market is evolving: useful to collectors, auction houses, galleries, advisers, and anyone interested in how the market behaves.
Stay up-to-date
You can always find this Substack at www.theunderbidder.net
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