Millionaires and Art Market
This is no surprise:
Artnet: A report by "wealth-research" firm the Spectrum Group confirms what dealers at the recent Armory Show fairs probably already suspected -- the nation’s millionaires are hurting. According to the Wall Street Journal, the number of households with a net worth of more than $1 million dropped by 2.5 million from 2007 and 2008, and now stands at 6.7 million. Meanwhile, close to half of all remaining millionaires have seen more than 30 percent of their net worth wiped away. "The population of millionaires is now at levels last seen in 2003-04, meaning that the economic crisis has all but erased the millionaire boom of the past five years," the WSJ reports. That’s a period of time that not un-coincidentally coincides with the big boom in art fairs, which kicked into high gear with the first Art Basel Miami Beach in 2002, and the first Frieze Art Fair, in 2003.
