The Australian Art Auction Market in 2025
A record year powered by depth, not just trophies
Earlier this month I published my review of the New Zealand art auction market. This week, I’m following it up with a comprehensive review of the Australian fine art auction market in 2025 that includes a number of data driven insights. I’ve posted the summary and 10 key stats below. But for the full review, download the pdf using the link below. Also make sure to subscribe for more insights like this in the future.
Market Summary
What shaped the auction market in 2025
The Australian fine art auction market delivered a record year with $121m in total sales (+15.3%) across six leading auction houses. Activity also strengthened with 3,572 lots offered (+4.0%) and 2,675 lots sold (+9.5%), lifting the sell-through rate to 75%, showing growth was supported by stronger clearance and volume, not just higher prices.
Sales distribution remained highly top-heavy. Works selling for more than $100k represented just 8.8% of lots sold but generated 73.2% of total value ($88.8m). At the other end, works selling for under $5k accounted for 48.5% of lots sold but contributed only ~2% of sales, reinforcing the market’s long-tail structure. The key change in 2025 was depth with the top price falling from $3.9m to $2.5m, yet total sales increased, consistent with growth being spread across more high-value transactions rather than on a few outlier trophy works.
2025 also marked a step-change year for Howard Arkley, confirming his position as Australia’s leading contemporary artist at auction. His works generated $10.6m in sales, including two $2.5m results (Contemporary Units sold at Smith & Singer and Neapolitan Delight at Deutscher and Hackett) and four of the year’s top ten prices. This is an exceptional concentration of value in a single artist, with results significantly exceeding estimates.
Post War art remained the market’s anchor by total dollars, but Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary gained share. Contemporary’s rise was heavily Arkley led, while Impressionist & Modern’s surge was broader-based with John Peter Russell the headline name, supported by Frederick McCubbin, Arthur Streeton, Grace Cossington Smith, and Emily Kame Kngwarreye.
Women artists remained structurally underrepresented. Works by women accounted for 18.2% of total sales, flat year-on-year and slightly below the five-year average. That said, 2025 delivered meaningful top-end signals with Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s Untitled (Awelye) exceeding $1m at Deutscher and Hackett and Grace Cossington Smith’s The Reader (The School Cape) coming in just shy of $1m, also at Deutscher and Hackett. These are both among the strongest results ever achieved by women artists at auction in Australia.
First Nations art strengthened again in 2025. Total sales reached $12.2m (+23% vs 2024), with results led by Kngwarreye, followed by Albert Namatjira and Lin Onus. Concentration was high with Kngwarreye alone representing 38% of sales, yet the market also retained meaningful entry points, with substantial volume continuing to transact at lower price tiers alongside trophy pricing.
Globally, 2025 also improved with Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips delivering $5.42bn in art auction sales, but remained well below the post-pandemic peak. The defining feature was timing: H2 sales of $3.24bn were 48% higher than H1’s $2.18bn, and the rebound was led by top-tier works coming to market. Australia broadly mirrored the global H2 lift, but with a firmer starting point, H1 held up relatively well to prior years, and with growth supported by higher clearance and deeper $100k+ activity rather than dependence on single trophy lot.
2025 rewarded both rare blue-chip artists and a wider pool of high-quality works from a broad base of Australian artists. The key question for 2026 is whether supply can remain strong enough to sustain momentum now that the market has reset to a higher level.
10 Key Takeaways
2025 by the numbers
$121m
Total value of fine art sold across six leading auction houses in 2025, setting a new record for sales.
75%
Sell-through rate rose in 2025, up from 71% in 2024.
$5,250
The median price in 2025, up 5% from $5,000 in 2024. The 1000th most expensive art work sold for $11,046, up from $8,125.
236
Artworks sold for $100k+ representing just 8.8% of lots sold, but generating 73% of total sales ($88.8m).
16
Number of lots sold for $1m+ in 2025, (up from 14 in 2024). Their share of sales fell to 21% (from 25.0%), pointing to a less “trophy-dependent” year.
$2.5m
Highest price of the year, achieved by Howard Arkley’s Contemporary Units at Smith & Singer in August ($2.0m hammer price).
80/50
The top 50 artists captured 80% of 2025 sales value, while the top 10 captured 47% of sales value.
$42m
Sales attributed to Impressionist & Modern artists, up from $24m in 2024 (up 78% from 2024).
18%
Share of total sales attributable to women artists, unchanged from 2024.
804%
Largest over performance against estimate: Donald Friend’s Vel Festival, Toy Seller, Ceylon sold for $56,250 against an estimate of $5,000 - $7,000 at Smith & Singer.