Prints have demonstrated resilience amid a two-year slowdown in the art market. ArtTactic reported sales in the medium grew 18.3% in 2023. Young collectors have been instrumental in this rise. Art Basel and UBS’s 2023 survey of global collecting found that Gen Z buyers spend more on prints than any other generation.
Jenny Gibbs, the director of the IFPDA Print Fair, says: “Starting in the fall of 2024 we began seeing new faces entering the market, and this does appear to be driven in part by the generational transfer of wealth we’ve all been reading about.” She adds that Josh Baer, the adviser and Baer Faxt founder, “called it correctly when he forecast a bull market in terms of volume—not price—and we have been seeing that in the market for prints and editions”.
Bolstering the phenomenon have been key changes in collecting strategies. Sharon Coplan, the independent curator, publisher and adviser, says: “If I strike up a conversation at a dinner party with a collector, invariably they speak about their collection by artist or theme—rarely by medium.” She cites Jordan Schnitzer and his august print collection as an exception to this rule.
March 17, 2025