We know the contemporary and ultra-contemporary markets are undergoing a significant correction as the pandemic speculative frenzy fades, but the newly released Hiscox Artist Top 100 (HAT 100) shows just how much the contemporary art market has cooled, with auction sales of post-2000 artworks dropping 27 percent year over year—from $956 million in 2023 to $698 million in 2024—down 41 percent from its 2021 peak. As a result, fewer than 45 artists rose in the top 100 rankings, which are now largely dominated—at least through the 18th position—by more established postwar and blue-chip names.
Yayoi Kusama, unsurprisingly, retains her throne with $58.8 million in sales. Beneath her in the rankings, however, new artists have joined the top ten. François-Xavier Lalanne, for instance, leaped from 34th to 2nd, riding a wave of auction demand that brought in $52.8 million—just shy of Kusama’s total. Richard Prince climbed from 13th to 5th ($15.4 million), Lucian Freud surged from 43rd to 8th ($13.1 million) and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye jumped from 23rd to 9th with $10.4 million. Claude Lalanne, riding the sales of pieces signed with her late husband and a new interest in her own work, advanced from 25th to 10th with $9.75 million.
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Meanwhile, Ed Ruscha jumped from 127th to 13th, Agnes Martin surged to 17th from 286th position and Maurizio Cattelan (the brains behind last year’s $6.2 million banana) climbed to 29th from 978th. Other new entries in the top 100 were Ronald Ventura, Salvo, Derek Fordjour, Zao Wou-Ki, Vija Celmins, Daniel Richter and Hilary Pecis.
Encouragingly, the HAT 100 shows signs of progress—albeit slow progress—in gender parity, with the number of women in the top hundred ranking increasing from 30 to 32. In 2024, 822 post-2000 works by women came to auction—up 13 percent from 728 the year prior. Joining Kusama in the top 10 are Lalanne, Cecily Brown at 7th ($13.4 million) and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at 9th. Julie Mehretu, while still in strong territory, slipped from 6th to 11th ($9.6 million).
Lucy Bull and Jadé Fadojutimi are leading a younger generation of rising stars
Among the best-performing artists under 45, two women stand out. The magmatic abstractions by Lucy Bull are having a stellar year both in the market and institutions, rocketing the artist from 35th to 18th ($8.1 million), followed by Jadé Fadojutimi at 19th ($7.1 million). Nicolas Party remained in the top 30 despite dropping from 7th to 27th ($5.6 million), with Matthew Wong down to 30th ($5.1 million) and Avery Singer holding steady at 41st ($3.6 million).
Fadojutimi’s market is robust—particularly for her “wet paintings,” with seven selling at auction in 2024. Her latest record was set at Christie’s London in March when The Woven Warped Garden of Ponder (2021) fetched £1.6 million ($2 million), tripling previous results and confirming the now 31-year-old British artist of Nigerian heritage as one of the most sought-after artists in the category. The strength of Fadojutimi’s secondary market is supported by true scarcity and strong demand, as her work is virtually unobtainable on the primary market, as proven by her recent sold-out New York debut at Gagosian.
Other artists with a significant number of fresh works sold at auction in 2024 include Joel Mesler (6), Stephen Wong Chun Hei (5), Sholto Blissett (5) and Thierry Noir (5). In terms of geographies and cultural backgrounds, the ranking confirms an auction market mainly concentrated around artists from North America (43) and Europe (36), while the number of Asian, African and Latin American artists in the top hundred fell to 21 from 25 the previous year.
It’s worth remembering when reading the Hiscox ranking that those numbers are both determined by demand and depend on supply. Top-quality consignments (such as Richard Prince’s Untitled (Cowboy), 1997, which sold at Christie’s London in October for approximately $2.6 million) can contribute to an artist’s jump in the ranking. Similarly, Ed Ruscha’s meteoric rise in the rankings was likely due to the auction record set by Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half (1964), which sold for $68.3 million at Christie’s in November.
The Hiscox Artist Top 100 can only tell us so much
While certainly illuminating, an artist’s Hiscox ranking is based entirely on public market results, and those results don’t necessarily correlate with institutional relevance, which is established through biennials, awards and museum exhibitions. That said, the 2025 HAT 100 ranking mirrors the latest findings of this year’s Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report, which revealed a 28 percent year-on-year drop in Postwar and Contemporary auction sales—the third consecutive year of decline from an $8.5 billion high. The latest Artprice report echoes this, finding that just 43 ultra-contemporary works surpassed $500,000 in 2023/24, even as total transactions rose—particularly in the lower tiers.
Although eye-popping record-setting sales have become less frequent and flipping wet paintings is less profitable, postwar and contemporary art remained the largest segment of the fine art auction market in 2024, according to the Art Basel & UBS report, with 52 percent of the value of global sales and 54 percent by volume. Similarly, Artprice confirmed that transactions in the category reached a new record of 132,000 in twelve months, as Generation X and Millennials become the main drivers of what is still a dynamic market.
Even if fewer ultra-contemporary artists entered the HAT rankings due to lower headline prices, total transactions for post-2000 works hit an all-time high, up 5 percent. Works over $1 million fell by 41 percent, while lots under $50,000 rose 20 percent to 4,684, with a collective value of $59 million—up 5 percent.
“For now, the market in new art is dominated by collectors, not speculators, which is why sales of works for less than $50,000 are at record levels,” Robert Read, head of art and private clients for Hiscox U.K., writes in the report. “It’s human nature to want to own nice things, and for a relatively small amount of money, new collectors in their 30s and 40s can buy something by an up-and-coming artist of their generation, whose work they can collect for years to come.”
In short, what emerges from all these surveys isn’t collapse. It’s a much-needed recalibration. The number of wet paintings sold at auction dropped by a quarter—from 924 in 2023 to 698 in 2024. When they did appear, nearly one in five went unsold, and only 38 percent exceeded their mid-estimate. The average return on post-2000 works resold at auction fell to -0.3 percent, down from 9 percent in 2023 after a high of 21.4 percent in 2021.
As the post-2000 art category becomes less profitable, auction houses are playing it safe and avoiding the inclusion of younger names in their marquee sales—just 35 percent were artists under 45, down from the two previous years—while overall attention shifts to works by established contemporary and post-war artists.
If sky-high valuations and speculative wet paintings are fading from the spotlight, what’s left is a market defined by serious art collectors instead of flippers. But that doesn’t mean the game is over. The number of new artists hitting the auction block (up 12 percent to 2,602 works), alongside the boom in sub-$50,000 acquisitions, points to a more diverse and—hopefully—more stable secondary market.
Finally, this year’s Hiscox Artist Top 100 confirms New York is still the anchor of the post-war and contemporary auction market (51 percent), followed by Hong Kong (25 percent) and London (21 percent). The 52 percent plunge in Hong Kong sales reflects not only China’s broader economic slowdown and property market crisis but also, as the Art Basel & UBS Report suggested, a maturing buyer base that’s trading flash for staying power. And that, increasingly, is the tone around the world: more considered but still dynamic art markets trading speculative hype for more sustainable long-term prospects and perspectives.
