2026 Art Market Predictions

Where is the art and decorative art market heading in 2026? Straight to the 1970s.

Some recent high profile sales this past few weeks show that collectors are aggressively returning to sexy trophy objects, the more culturally evocative, the better; take for example a recent sale by the private boutique auction from Fair Warning on Nov. 19, indicative of the accelerated strong market demand for Warhol’s most iconic portraits of celebrities, famously beautiful faces which have entered the lexicon of contemporary visual culture, thanks to Warhol’s creations in mid-1970s America.

The Sale Result:

Brigitte Bardot (RIP) – in two colors: gold ground, magent screen) – signed… and dated ‘74 on the overlap, acrylic and silkscreen on canvas 47.2” square. Estimated $8,000,000-$12,000,000 sold for $16,675,000. 

Andy Warhol made eight silkscreen paintings of Bardot in 1974, all based on a 1959 photograph by Richard Avedon commissioned by Gunter Sach, Bardot’s husband from 1966-69. Five discreet paintings of Bardot have sold since 2006, and two paintings in this series have come up on the auction block twice, one of which, significantly, is that very recent sale of Nov. 19. The Fair Warning Bardot silkscreen is in two colors (gold and magenta) and was sold previously at Sotheby’s in 2012. At that time, this work sold for $4,732,607 (Lot 00023, at Sotheby’s Gunter Sachs Sale). The sale of the Fair Warning Bardot, as compared to the 2012 sale, indicates an accrued value rate of approximately $1,000,000 a year. 

Five different color combinations of the Bardot portraits are rumored to be in private hands; in 2011, at the Gagosian Gallery, London, six Bardot silkscreens were presented together. One Bardot is at the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The desire to own the French New Wave Sex Kitten has existed since the 70s. Today 45-year-old collectors have deep nostalgia for the 1970s and all that the ‘70s represent: the “hip” market in 2026 is driven by sex, celebrity, money, and masterpieces. Artists and works that have become ‘brands’ will be sought after, and high prices will be paid for “flash.” 

The sale by Fair Warning at $16.7 mill, (exceeding the maximum estimate of $12 mill) is the best result of the year for a Warhol; four bidders competed for the gold and magenta Bardot, bidding past the $10 mill threshold. As interest increases for the artist’s iconic mid-20^th century subjects, those famous silkscreened faces of modern celebrities of the 1970s are coming up for sale: think Mick Jagger, Queen Elizabeth II, Marilyn, Jackie… the 1970s and 1980s are making a total comeback.

A further signal that the market for Warhol’s sexualized celebrity faces is ripe and demand is high is the Warhol which was unveiled on December 1, 2025, at Gallery Levy Gorvy at Art Basel Miami of an image of Muhammad Ali (1977), a three quarter portrait of the handsome fighter in a potent eye-to-eye confrontational strike pose. The same Ali portrait was sold at Christie’s in 2021 for $18.1 mill; the accelerated market has changed the connoisseur landscape. Gallery Levy Gorvy leveraged Art Basel Miami as a return to market for Warhol’s Ali at the Gallery’s Miami Convention Center booth. (A marketing stroke of genius: Ali fought there in 1970s.) It sold on December 3 for $18,000,000 to an undisclosed buyer. 

The market is hot for 1970-1980s prints in editions: prints offers a spectrum of availability from those that are signed and numbered to those that are “estate” prints – and quite affordable. Again, cultural artifacts such as Bardot and Ali prints, laden with nostalgia for the 1970s-80s, will be the guiding light. 

Historically significant images of our American recent past (yes, the 1970-80s period is recent past to some of us) matter. Furthermore, artists that hit their peak in the era of the 70s are hot: Basquiat, Calder, de Kooning, Fontana, Ryman, Twombly, and of course Warhol. Cross pollination from social sources impact the way we buy art: think of Netflix’s The Andy Warhol Diaries. 

Furniture and decorative objects from the 1970s and 1980s – and even the 1990s – are beginning to command top prices. That Italian Brass and Glass dining table is back, (and so is the dining room by the way). 

The sale of Muhammad Ali a few days ago at the 23rd Art Basel in Miami Beach was the most expensive sale of the Fair; the Gallery Levy Gorvey’s booth was the event, visited by hundreds of fans of the civil rights era athlete; some big names came to worship at the shrine of the image, including Ali’s sons Asaad Amin and Muhammad Ali, Jr. 

Known by his nickname The Greatest, Ali’s portrait from a series of eight from 1974, along with the sale a few weeks earlier of Warhol’s Bardot portrait inching close to the $20 mill price point, indicate our expectations for 2026: 

Flash, Sass, Cash, and Splash, 1970s style.