The global art market is experiencing a fundamental transformation in how collectors perceive value, with emotional resonance, cultural legacy, and social impact now rivaling—and in many cases surpassing—financial returns as primary motivations for acquiring art. Deloitte’s newly released 2025 Art & Finance Report documents this shift in detail, painting a picture of an industry that must adapt to changing demographics and priorities or risk losing relevance with the very generation poised to inherit and expand it.
Wealth Is Growing, But the Art Market Is Stagnating
The report arrives against a backdrop of expanding global wealth. The population of ultra-high-net-worth individuals is projected to grow substantially, from approximately 121,000 in 2024 to an estimated 163,725 by 2030. This demographic expansion would typically suggest robust growth prospects for the art market, which has historically served as both an investment vehicle and status symbol for the wealthy.
However, the reality proves more complicated. Despite this wealth accumulation, Deloitte’s analysis finds that the global art market is stagnating. The culprits are structural problems that have long plagued the industry: high transaction costs, exclusivity that borders on elitism, and opacity in pricing and provenance that erodes buyer confidence. These factors combine to create an environment where potential collectors—particularly younger ones—feel unwelcome or skeptical.
Younger professionals and emerging collectors are not content to accept these conditions as immutable features of the art world. Instead, they are actively pressing for reform, calling for what the report describes as “a more transparent, inclusive, cost-efficient and modern” system. This demand for change reflects broader generational expectations shaped by experiences in other markets where technology has driven transparency and reduced friction.
The report’s authors issue a clear warning to industry participants: without meaningful reform addressing these structural issues, the art market risks alienating the demographic that represents its future. The next generation of collectors has options for how to deploy their wealth, and an art market that fails to evolve may find itself bypassed in favor of alternative investments or philanthropic vehicles that better align with their values.
The Mid-Market Emerges as a Bright Spot
Amid the broader stagnation, one segment of the art market has demonstrated resilience: mid-market works priced between $50,000 and $1 million. Valued at roughly $8 billion in 2024, this segment represents what the report characterizes as a largely untapped opportunity for both new collectors and investors.
The mid-market’s relative strength likely reflects several factors. Entry points at the lower end of this range remain accessible to a broader population of affluent individuals beyond just the ultra-wealthy. Works in this price range also tend to involve less speculation than trophy pieces commanding eight or nine figures, potentially offering more stable value propositions. For new collectors looking to build meaningful collections without committing tens of millions of dollars to individual works, the mid-market provides an attractive proving ground.
This segment’s resilience also suggests that the art market’s challenges are not uniform across all price points. The opacity and exclusivity that frustrate potential participants may be more pronounced at the market’s highest levels, where auction house relationships, private sales, and insider knowledge play outsized roles. The mid-market may offer a more navigable entry point for collectors who lack these advantages.
Wealth Management and Art Advisory Services
At the wealth management level, art remains an important component of comprehensive advisory services, though the landscape of institutional offerings is shifting. The report finds that fewer wealth management institutions now offer art-related support than in recent years, declining from 63 percent in 2023 to 51 percent in 2025. This contraction may reflect consolidation in the industry, cost pressures, or strategic decisions to focus resources elsewhere.
However, the institutions that continue providing art advisory services are expanding their approach beyond pure investment considerations. Nearly nine out of ten wealth managers surveyed emphasized the need for what the report terms “integrated advisory relationships”—connections between art holdings and broader wealth planning concerns including estate planning, philanthropy, and legacy creation.
This integrated approach reflects the reality that art holdings interact with numerous aspects of a wealthy family’s financial life. Art can be donated for tax benefits, bequeathed to heirs with attendant estate planning implications, used as loan collateral, or contributed to museums or foundations as part of philanthropic strategies. Wealth managers who treat art in isolation from these considerations provide incomplete service to clients for whom art represents a significant portfolio allocation.
The report finds that clients currently allocate approximately 10.4 percent of their total wealth to art and collectibles, a share that has remained largely consistent with recent years. This stability suggests that art has established itself as a permanent fixture in wealthy portfolios rather than a passing enthusiasm, even as motivations for holding it evolve beyond purely financial considerations.
Family Offices Prioritize Estate Planning Over Art Investment
Among family offices—the private wealth management entities that serve ultra-high-net-worth families—the report reveals shifting priorities that reflect broader themes in the data. Only 7 percent of family offices now prioritize art investment as a near-term focus, while 67 percent rank estate planning as their top concern.
This disparity likely reflects multiple factors. Family offices managing multigenerational wealth face pressing needs around succession planning and wealth transfer as founding generations age. The approximately $31 trillion in wealth projected to change hands globally over the next decade creates urgent demands on estate planning resources. In this context, art investment naturally takes a secondary position to ensuring smooth intergenerational transitions.
The estate planning emphasis also connects to art’s role in these transitions. Art collections must be appraised, potentially divided among heirs, evaluated for donation opportunities, and integrated into broader estate structures. The complexity of these tasks means that even family offices not actively acquiring art must dedicate substantial attention to managing existing collections through generational transitions.
Art Philanthropy Gains Significant Momentum
One of the most striking findings in the report involves art philanthropy, which has gained substantial momentum among wealthy collectors. The share of respondents engaged in art philanthropy rose dramatically from 23 percent in 2023 to 51 percent in 2025, more than doubling in just two years.
This surge reflects what the report describes as “a deeper commitment to meaning-driven wealth”—a desire to deploy resources in ways that create cultural value and social impact rather than simply accumulating assets. Art philanthropy takes multiple forms, including donations to museums, support for artist residencies and education programs, funding for conservation efforts, and establishment of private foundations with art-focused missions.
The tax advantages of art donation provide financial incentives for this activity, but the report’s findings suggest motivations extend well beyond tax planning. Collectors increasingly view their holdings as cultural resources with value beyond their personal enjoyment, and philanthropy provides a mechanism for sharing that value with broader audiences while building lasting legacies.
Next-Generation Collectors Redefine Value
Perhaps the report’s most significant findings involve the priorities of next-generation collectors—those who will inherit existing collections and build new ones in coming decades. Their perspectives differ markedly from previous generations and carry profound implications for the art market’s future direction.
Among these younger collectors, 72 percent say they value art for legacy and cultural impact over profit. This finding inverts traditional assumptions about art as an alternative asset class valued primarily for portfolio diversification and potential appreciation. For these collectors, art’s meaning derives from its cultural significance and the legacy it allows them to create and share, not from its potential to generate financial returns.
Educational value also ranks highly, with 84 percent of next-generation collectors emphasizing this dimension. This likely encompasses both personal education—learning about art history, aesthetics, and cultural contexts through collecting—and the educational value that collections can provide to others through public display, loans to institutions, or eventual donation.
Philanthropic intent features prominently as well, with 54 percent of younger collectors prioritizing this consideration. This aligns with the broader surge in art philanthropy documented in the report and suggests that the trend will continue as wealth transfers to generations with these values.
The most dramatic shift involves financial returns as a collecting motivation. This consideration has dropped precipitously from 83 percent in 2023 to just 52 percent in 2025. “Financial return is no longer the dominant driver,” the report notes, a conclusion with significant implications for how the art market must position itself to attract and retain these collectors.
Art-Secured Lending Continues Expansion
While younger collectors may de-emphasize financial returns, art’s utility as a financial asset continues to expand in other ways. Art-secured lending—using art collections as collateral for loans—represents a growing market that the report projects will reach up to $50 billion by 2027.
This lending activity reflects art’s evolving role as what the report terms “both cultural and capital asset.” Collectors increasingly use their holdings as collateral to finance other ventures, whether business investments, real estate acquisitions, or philanthropic efforts. This approach allows them to maintain ownership and enjoyment of their collections while accessing liquidity that the art itself represents.
Art-secured lending requires sophisticated appraisal and risk management capabilities, creating opportunities for specialized lenders and wealth managers with relevant expertise. The growth of this market also underscores the importance of accurate valuation and clear provenance—without these foundations, lenders cannot confidently extend credit against art assets.
Technology Reshapes Art Management and Verification
Technology is increasingly central to how art is managed, verified, and valued, with tools like blockchain and artificial intelligence finding applications across the industry. Blockchain technology offers particular promise for provenance tracking, creating immutable records of ownership history that can reduce fraud risk and increase buyer confidence. AI applications include risk management, collection organization, valuation modeling, and authentication support.
These technological tools address some of the transparency and efficiency concerns that younger collectors have raised. Blockchain-based provenance records, for example, could reduce the opacity that currently characterizes much of the art market, while AI-powered valuation tools could help democratize pricing information that has traditionally been closely held by dealers and auction houses.
However, the report also warns that technology alone cannot solve the art market’s challenges. Frustration with slow regulatory reform could erode trust if the market fails to modernize its practices alongside its technologies. Collectors and potential collectors want not just better tools but better systems—more transparent pricing, clearer fee structures, and more accessible entry points.
A Defining Choice for the Art World
As the report concludes, the art world faces a defining choice in how it responds to the documented shifts in collector values and demographics. With nearly $31 trillion in global wealth projected to transfer to new hands over the next decade, the stakes are substantial.
The generation inheriting and building this wealth sees art as purpose as much as possession. They value cultural impact, educational enrichment, and philanthropic potential alongside—or above—financial returns. They expect transparency, inclusivity, and efficiency that the current market often fails to provide. They are willing to press for reform and, presumably, to take their resources elsewhere if reform does not materialize.
The art market can evolve to meet these expectations, modernizing its practices, embracing technology, and repositioning art as a vehicle for meaning and impact rather than solely as an alternative asset class. Or it can maintain its traditional structures and risk, as the report warns, “fading into irrelevance” as wealth flows to vehicles better aligned with emerging values.
The report’s findings suggest this choice is not merely strategic but existential. An industry built on exclusivity and opacity faces a generation that values inclusion and transparency. An asset class historically valued for financial returns faces collectors who prioritize legacy and impact. The art market’s response to these tensions will determine whether it thrives or diminishes in the decades ahead.
Acknowledgment: This article was written with the help of AI, which also assisted in research, drafting, editing, and formatting this current version.
