Artnet and Aotearoa: A Mid-Year Art Market Reality Check
A comparison of global and local trends reveals sharper declines in New Zealand
Artnet’s Intelligence Report: The Mid-Year Report 2025 came out earlier this month and has been widely reported in the art community, particularly for painting a gloomy picture of the global art market. I thought it would be interesting to take a similar look at the New Zealand market and compare it with the conclusions that Artnet reached. While Artnet reported moderate declines worldwide, the New Zealand market looks even more fragile with sharper falls in sales and weaker sell-through rates.
This report mirrors Artnet’s format but focuses on hard data from New Zealand auctions.
H1 2025 by the numbers:
$249k
The top auction price fetched for an artwork in H1 this year (Milan Mrkusic’s Painting (Red) at Art & Object)
-44%
The drop in art sales at auction in the first half of the year, compared with the same period last year.
2044
The number of fine art lots sold at auction through 30 June. That’s down 12% vs the same period last year across the four big auction houses. The sell-through rate also slumped to 62%, the lowest in a decade.
-84%
The decline in sales generated by artworks that sold for more than $200,000 at auction in the first half of the year compared with the same period last year.
19
The number of artworks by women in the 100 top-selling lots at auction in the first six months of 2025. That’s down from 33 in the same period last year.
The Best-Seller Lists: Modern (Born 1944 or earlier)
Gordon Walters (1919 - 1995) Painting No. 9 $243,700
Paul Dibble (1943 - 2023) Giant Male Figure After Goya $243,700
Paul Dibble (1943 - 2023) Rising Figure Study 2 $225,423
Paul Dibble (1943 - 2023) Bouquet of Bird and Flowers $215,100
Raymond Ching (b. 1939) Flotilla! $174,174
Gordon Walters (1919 - 1995) Genealogy No. 8 $170,590
Milan Mrkusich (1925 - 2018) Blue Squared $140,128
Milan Mrkusich (1925 - 2018) Chromatic Circle 62-64 $140,128
Michael Smither (b. 1939) Huntley and Palmers Cracker Biscuit $127,943
The absence of Goldie, McCahon, Binney, Fomison, and Hammond defined this list. Gordon Walters is represented, but his results are a long way from setting records, and Painting No. 9 was well below the estimate of $300k - $400k. Milan Mrkusich features strongly, including his Painting (Red), the second highest result for his work. No women featured, with Gretchen Albrecht the highest female performer with Abyss selling at $87,850.
The Best-Seller Lists: Contemporary (Born 1945 or later)
Jeffrey Harris (b. 1949) Jillian and Brothers $194,960
Karl Maughan (b. 1964) Landscape with Pool $191,305
Grahame Sydney (b. 1948) Brass Monkey Hill, 2003 $186,186
Grahame Sydney (b. 1948) The Edge of the Simpson Desert $181,381
John Pule (b. 1962) Niniko Lalolagi/Dazzling World $140,128
Phil Price (b. 1965) Angel $121,850
Raewyn Turner (b. 1953) A Thousand Acres $97,990
Shane Cotton (b. 1964) Blue Sigat $97,297
Peter Stichbury (b. 1969) Estelle 15 $60,925
A diverse list with only Grahame Sydney appearing more than once. Three artists setting records (Jeffrey Harris, Karl Maughan, and Raewyn Turner) as well as three more achieving their second highest auction results (Brent Wong, John Pule and Phil Price). Raewyn Turner’s Split Enz cover, A Thousand Acres, blew past it’s estimate, presumably with a number of collectors wanting to own this piece of musical history.
How Much Art Sold at Auction in the First Half of 2025?
Sales achieved $9.5m across the 3 largest auction houses (Art & Object, International Art Centre, and Webbs), a 45% decrease on sales from H1 2024. 2021 and 2022 were record years, yet they didn’t show this at the halfway mark; an optimistic view would be that 2025 could still similarly achieve significant sales in H2, but that is probably too optimistic.
The number of lots sold was also down, though ‘only’ a 23% decrease, and more in line years prior to 2024. The average price per lot fell 36% to $4,933, the lowest in the last five years.
There was a significant drop in the very top end of the market, with only 6 works selling for $200k+, a 57% decrease on the 14 works sold in the first half of 2024. Two Goldie works were listed with high estimates of $2.5m and $600k respectively, but neither sold at auction. Two Frances Hodgkins works were also listed with high estimates of $300k and $270k, but again neither of these sold.
Artnet reports a 8.8% drop in sales and 2.4% in lots sold, which is not as bad as the impact in the New Zealand market. Artnet also reports a drop in high-priced masterpieces (albeit, their top end is $10m+), similar to New Zealand’s top end of the market.
What Category Was the Most Lucrative Midway Through the Year?
Artnet segments artists into five categories: Old Masters; Impressionist & Modern; Postwar; Contemporary; and Ultra-Contemporary. The New Zealand market is too small for five segments, instead I’ve consolidated these into two: ‘Modern’ (artists born 1944 and earlier) and ‘Contemporary’ (artists born 1945 and later).
Most striking is the drop in sales in the Modern segment, down 57% from 2024. As mentioned above, the big names that command prices above $200k have been lacking from auction in H1. The two Goldies and the two Hodgkins works could have made a significant impact if they had sold.
The Artnet report notes there’s been a significant contraction in the ultra-contemporary market (born 1975 onwards). The New Zealand market experienced a similar contraction with H1 sales down 72% from $147k in 2024 to $40k in 2025. Though in both years the tally of ultra-contemporary works is in low double digits, so this drop is more anecdotal than structural.
Two things to note: 1) the 2021 Contemporary spike was largely driven by almost $3m of works by Banksy being sold in H1; 2) for about 5% of sales (the long tail) I don’t have the artist’s age and I’ve excluded those sales from this chart. But I don’t believe this impacts the overall trends observed.
Which Price Brackets Saw Growth?
Despite sales falling significantly in the first half of 2025, sales in the $100k - $200k price bracket have remained strong, and, in fact, have doubled on 2024.
The top end of the market ($200k+) contracted significantly, decreasing 84% from $8.4m down to $1.3m. H1 2024 was an outlier with the sale of Neil Graham’s collection of six Goldies. But even compared to the prior 3 years that averaged about $4m, it’s still a significant drop in 2025 at the top end of the market.
Artnet also saw a similar trend with sales in its top price bracket dropping, but increasing in its second top tier. Perhaps people are trading down?
Artnet also notes that the there is an industry narrative of the low end stabilising. However, that’s not supported in their numbers that show a 10% decrease. Likewise, in New Zealand, we have also seen a contraction of sales in both the $0 - $10k (down from $3.3m to $2.7m and $10k - $50k (down from $3.8m to $2.5m) price brackets.
Most Bankable Artists: Modern
Most Bankable Artists: Contemporary
Methodology
Results are taken from online auction results from the four major New Zealand auction houses: Art & Object, International Art Centre, Webbs, and Dunbar Sloane. Dunbar Sloane’s results are only available online from 2022; I’ve excluded them from some analysis when looking back to 2018 to provide more consistent results in the data.
After a sluggish H1, July and August delivered a dramatic turnaround, with 9 paintings achieving prices higher than anything seen earlier in the year.