Hello everyone, and welcome to this special halfway-through-the-year edition of Artsy Insider. 

I’m writing this from a heatwave-ridden London, a city that struggles with adverse weather at the best of times. People are not okay! Thankfully, things in the art world are starting to cool down. Art Basel, probably the most important fair in the art market, wrapped up a fortnight ago, and a series of auctions in London also concluded last week. The two moments close out a packed calendar of art market activity, with a slower pace of events on the docket until September. 

That’s right, summer vacation season is upon us. The reduced scheduling makes this edition of the newsletter an apt moment to reflect as we cross the halfway mark of 2025. 

Here, we’ll share the most in-demand artists on Artsy from the year so far, and I’ll offer some takeaways from what we’ve learned about the art market in 2025. In a new section, I’ll also highlight a notable artwork (scroll down to find out which one) from the recent London auctions.  Plus, in our mailbag section, art advisor Arianne Piper offers her thoughts on this year’s edition of Art Basel.  

Oh, and one other note: Insider is taking a summer break of its own! There’ll be no August edition, so we’ll see you in September. 

Wishing you a restful summer, wherever you are,

Arun Kakar

Senior Art Market Editor

The above chart records the artists with the greatest Artsy inquiry growth from the last year to June. Topping the list is David Lynch, the legendary filmmaker who passed away in January. 

While Lynch is best known for his films such as Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, he maintained an active art practice. Lynch produced sculptures, photography, and paintings that touched on many of the themes explored in his films, such as the self, the subconscious, and violence. 

His estate is represented by Sperone Westwater and Pace Gallery, which mounted its first show with the artist, “Big Bongo Night,” in November 2022. 

Lynch is followed by Mark Tennant. The American painter is best known for his contemporary realist style; he captures ambiguous human subjects in a blurred, loose way that evokes nostalgia and memory. The artist is currently the director of graduate fine arts at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and has exhibited internationally, including at the Salon d’Automne in Paris and the European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona.  Last year, he mounted a pair of solo shows with GALLERI RAMFJORD in Oslo and at the MEUM Museum in Barcelona. 

Well, the first half of the year in the art market has been interesting, to say the least. It started with a sense of optimism, which quickly dissipated when the chaotic tariff announcements from Donald Trump led to economic volatility in the U.S. that quickly spread around the world. While art is understood to be exempt from those tariffs—additional taxes placed on goods imported to the U.S.—the announcement sent jitters across the art market that are still being felt as I type this. Essentially, it’s a more cautious moment for the industry, in which an unclear economic picture is leading to a more muted attitude among collectors. 

Here are three quick takeaways I’ve picked up from the year so far:

Tamara de Lempicka, La Belle Rafaëla (1927)
Sold for £7.47 million ($10.05 million).

Tamara de Lempicka’s reclining nude La Belle Rafaëla (1927) was a standout sale in an otherwise quiet season of auctions in London at the end of last month. The work sold for £7.47 million ($10.05 million) at Sotheby’s modern and contemporary evening sale in London, the most expensive price realized at that auction (all prices include fees). 

The elegant work is an exemplar of de Lempicka’s neoclassical, stylized Art Deco oeuvre. In recent years, she has received overdue recognition as one of the few truly iconic painters of the style, which is most frequently associated with design and architecture. 

The sale of La Belle Rafaëla is the latest in a series of solid auction results for the late Polish artist. Her auction record of £16.38 million ($21.29 million) was set in 2020 for Portrait de Marjorie Ferry (1932), and this month’s result is one of five works by the artist to sell for eight figures over the past six years. Preceding the sale of La Belle Rafaëla was Portrait du Docteur Boucard (1928), which sold for £6.63 million ($8.48 million) at Christie’s in London this March. 

Since the artist’s record-breaking sale in 2020, her work is now among the most expensive by women artists at auction. Celebrity collectors of her paintings include Jack Nicholson and Madonna. Institutions have also begun to acknowledge the impact of her work, with museums such as Paris’s Musée d’Art Moderne staging exhibitions that featured her works. This ascent was capped off last fall by the artist’s first U.S. retrospective at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Arguably, de Lempicka has never been as popular as she is today, and her star is only set to rise with more recognition.  

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For this month’s Insider, we tapped Arianne Piper, founder of her eponymous art advisory firm. The esteemed London-based art advisor has more than two decades of experience in modern and contemporary art, and has previously held positions at Sotheby’s and UBS Wealth Management. With Art Basel now behind us, we asked Arianne to reflect on what she learned from this year’s fair week. 

What does this year’s Art Basel tell us about where we are in the art market?

Art Basel 2025 reinforced that the art world remains firmly a buyer’s market. While market participants may need to recalibrate their expectations, this shift is particularly positive for collectors, as it reduces the pressure to act impulsively. All recorded sales were for works that were well-priced and of high quality, signaling a more mature market supported by confident, experienced collectors.

Art Basel continues to occupy a unique position, strengthened by vibrant satellite events like Basel Social Club, which reflect a growing appetite for experimentation, storytelling, and fresh perspectives. These formats resonate strongly with a younger generation of collectors. For instance, this year, two of our long-standing clients, each with over a decade of collecting experience, were accompanied [at the fair] by their children, who have grown up immersed in the art world and developed both the knowledge and taste to actively participate in their family’s collecting journey.

Meanwhile, Art Basel’s expansion into Doha marks a broader move toward global inclusivity, both in terms of audience reach and the diversity of artistic voices it’s likely to showcase. The key takeaway, therefore, is that adaptability remains essential in today’s art landscape.

Tamara de Lempicka, La Belle Rafaëla, 1927. Sotheby’s. Toyin Ojih Odutola, Life Insurance, 2025. Jack Shainman Gallery. David Lynch, Untitled one, 2008. Tandem Press. Werner Br