August 2026
Newsletter Issue 3
ROSENFELD GALLERY Private Sales & Advisory · Miami Beach Newsletter · August 2026
A note from Jason.
ROSENFELD GALLERY Private Sales & Advisory · Miami Beach Newsletter · August 2026
A note from Jason.
August has always been the art world's quiet month. The fairs are behind us, the fall sales are still weeks away, and the market pauses to catch its breath. I've come to value this stretch. It's when the noise falls away and serious collectors — the ones thinking carefully about what they own and what they want to own next — do their best thinking. A softer market rewards patience, and patience is something a fifty-year-old house is built for. A few thoughts as we head toward the fall season. — Jason Rosenfeld
Now down to business. The market, in plain numbers After the extraordinary highs of 2021 and 2022, the art market has spent two years cooling. Global sales fell roughly 4% in 2023 and about 12% in 2024, to some $57.5 billion. Read only the headlines and you would think the sky was falling. Look closer and a more useful picture emerges. The decline was concentrated almost entirely at the very top. Works priced above $10 million fell by nearly 40% in a single year, and that trophy tier shrank from about a third of the market's value to under a fifth. Meanwhile the lower end grew — more works changed hands, not fewer, and the overall number of transactions actually rose. For a collector, the conclusion is straightforward: this is not a collapse, it is a recalibration. The speculative froth at the summit has come off, while the deep, liquid middle of the market — quality works by established names — remains active and, for a patient buyer, more negotiable than it has been in years. Sellers of exceptional, fresh-to-market works are still achieving strong results, because genuine quality is always scarce. It is average material that struggles. In other words, the discipline that has always defined good collecting matters more now, not less: buy the best example, insist on condition and provenance, and think in decades. A softer market is, for the well-advised, a buyer's market. Thinking of selling this fall? Now is the time to plan If you are considering parting with a work — or an entire collection — this is the month to begin, not November. The consignment windows for the major fall sales open in late summer, and the most successful sales are the ones planned quietly and early. There are three routes, and the right one depends on the work. Auction offers transparency and open competition, best for pieces with broad, fresh demand, though it carries fees and the risk of a public result. A private sale offers confidentiality and price protection, better suited to high-value or discreet works. An outright sale to a dealer offers speed and certainty. The wrong move is to rush, or to let several works reach the market at once in a way that signals urgency.
We help clients think this through with no obligation — assessing what you have, what it is worth today, and the quietest, most effective way to realize it. If a fall sale is even a possibility, a conversation now is worth having. Spotlight: the enduring market for Keith Haring Few artists bridge accessibility and blue-chip status the way Keith Haring does. More than three decades after his death, his instantly recognizable visual language — the radiant baby, the barking dog — continues to draw one of the broadest, most liquid collector bases of any postwar artist. What makes Haring especially interesting in a cooling market is that breadth. His work spans an enormous range, from signed screenprints and Pop Shop editions accessible to newer collectors, to major canvases that command seven figures. That range means demand rarely disappears; there is almost always an active market at some level. For a first-time buyer, a well-chosen Haring edition is among the smartest entry points into serious collecting. For an established one, his best unique works remain genuinely scarce. As always, condition and provenance separate a good example from a great one. New: Corporate & Institutional Advisory Alongside our work with private collectors, we now advise companies, developers and institutions on building and managing art programs for the spaces where they work and welcome others — with the same connoisseurship we bring to private collections. From a single statement work to an entire building, and including collection management for corporate holdings. If your organization is considering art as part of an environment, or as an asset, we would welcome the conversation.
Begin a conversation Rosenfeld Gallery works privately, by appointment, from Miami Beach. Whether you are considering an acquisition, weighing a sale, or simply want a confidential conversation about what you own, we would be glad to talk. Jason Rosenfeld jason@rosenfeldgallery.com · By appointment, Miami Beach www.rosenfeldgallery.com
