Final month, New York performed host to not one however two main print festivals, underscoring the rising demand for prints and multiples in a market that has in any other case cooled. The Worldwide High-quality Print Sellers Affiliation (IFPDA) Print Truthful, which for years has been thought-about the gold commonplace for high-quality artwork print accumulating, noticed record-breaking attendance, whereas the inaugural Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair (BFAPF) positioned itself as a recent and important participant within the metropolis’s artwork honest panorama.
On the IFPDA Print Fair, which ran March 27 to March 30 on the Park Avenue Armory, attendance topped 21,000 over 4 days (surpassing final 12 months’s 19,000), with greater than 5,000 friends visiting on opening night time alone. Equally, VIP registrations soared by 57 p.c and there was a 26-percent uptick prematurely ticket gross sales from final 12 months.
The honest continues to be a magnet for severe collectors and establishments, with main figures in attendance similar to MoMA’s newly appointed director Christophe Cherix, at the moment the pinnacle of the museum’s drawings and prints division; Nadine Orenstein and Constance McPhee from the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork; and Catherine Daunt from the British Museum. Notable artists made their strategy to the honest as properly, together with Marilyn Minter, Lothar Osterburg, Yashua Klos, Polly Apfelbaum, and Mickalene Thomas, who did a particular set up at this 12 months’s version. Additionally noticed, on closing day, was Larry Gagosian.
The honest has established itself because the premier occasion within the subject, bringing collectively top-tier galleries like David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, and Tempo with impartial publishers similar to Black Ladies of Print and Mixografia. The honest’s programming, that includes conversations with artists like David Salle and Terry Winters, additionally emphasised each the historic depth and modern relevance of printmaking. This 12 months’s version featured 75 exhibitors showcasing works starting from a number of hundred {dollars} to almost $2 million.
There was no scarcity notable gross sales. Tempo Prints bought a screenprint on canvas by Jean Dubuffet, Website de Mémoire III (1979), for a six-figure worth on the second day of the honest, whereas Hauser & Wirth bought a brand new editioned mural by Rashid Johnson for $150,000 in addition to new work by Amy Sherald. Carolina Nitsch Up to date Artwork bought works by Johnson, Louise Bourgeois, Alyson Shotz, Kiki Smith, Nari Ward, Thomas Schütte, and Donald Judd at costs starting from $5,000–$140,000. Massachusetts-based Hill-Stone gallery bought a woodcut by Friedrich Capelari, a Western artist who specialised in Japanese woodblock prints, for $30,000.
Commissioned by the IFPDA and produced by the household basis of ARTnews High 200 Collector Jordan Schnitzer, Thomas’s site-specific l’espace entre les deux (2025) reworked a complete house into an immersive collage of prints and cast-pulp paper, demonstrating how artists are pushing the boundaries of printmaking.
Mickalene Thomas, l’espace entre les deux, 2025, set up view, at IFPDA Print Truthful 2025, New York.
Picture Dal Perry
In the meantime, throughout the East River, the Brooklyn High-quality Artwork Print Truthful debuted with a VIP opening at Powerhouse Arts in Gowanus, which had over 600 attendees at its VIP opening on March 27. That includes 41 print-focused galleries, 28 self-representing artists, and 7 tutorial print departments, the honest’s inaugural version provides a brand new alternative for print producers and sellers to additional gasoline an already-thriving market.
“What make prints so interesting is their mix of magic and science,” artist Crystalle Lacouture, who was exhibiting with Boston-based gallery Reward Shadows, instructed ARTnews. “It’s such a democratic medium, with roots in protest actions and going again to the Gutenberg press, that actually permits artists to experiment and increase their observe with out an excessive amount of of a monetary burden.”
Reward Shadows founder Yng-Ru Chen famous that prints additionally enable artwork sellers to open up their program to completely different audiences: “Artwork shouldn’t be about gatekeeping, and prints supply a manner round that mentality. As a gallerist I would like individuals to know loads about our artists and what we’re providing. Prints make it extra inclusive for individuals to have the ability to acquire.”
The surge in enthusiasm for prints isn’t just anecdotal. Market experiences affirm that prints and multiples have been a vivid spot amid a broader slowdown within the artwork world. Artwork Basel and UBS’s 2023 global collecting survey discovered that Gen Z consumers allocate extra of their artwork budgets to prints than another era. Excessive-net-worth people elevated their acquisitions of prints and multiples by 35 p.c in 2023 and the primary half of 2024, with these works now making up 24 p.c of their collections—up 16 p.c from the earlier 12 months. In accordance with ArtTactic, gross sales within the print sector grew by 18.3 percent in 2023, even because the broader market contracted.
“Over the previous couple of years, we hold seeing youthful individuals develop into print collectors, typically individuals who’ve by no means collected earlier than,” IFPDA govt director Jenny Gibbs instructed ARTnews. “We’re seeing this development that’s actual [in terms of] the naked details of a rise available in the market by way of quantity, however not worth.”
Molly Steiger, a senior vp at Sotheby’s and world head of its prints division, agreed, noting that prints and works on paper have been persistently in style amongst collectors. That the marketplace for prints appears booming is probably going simply now extra seen due to a downtick in different areas of the market. “The prints that we promote are by the identical artists which can be bought within the distinctive markets [of painting and sculpture] within the Impressionist gross sales and the modern artwork gross sales, simply at a way more engaging worth level,” she mentioned.
Steiger pointed to an artist like Jean-Michel Basquait, whose public sale document stands at $110 million, achieved at a Sotheby’s night sale in 2017. By comparability Basquiat prints on the high-end, go for round $1 million, or lower than 1 p.c of the document worth.
That lower cost level can be engaging to newer, youthful individuals within the artwork market. “We’ve undoubtedly seen some newer bidders collaborating available in the market, particularly within the fashionable and modern segments,” mentioned Sarah McMillian, a prints specialist at Swann Public sale Galleries. “I believe a variety of the expansion is coming from newer consumers who’re fascinating within the extra conventional prints, even Previous Masters, whereas our common shoppers have remained lively.”
As accumulating habits shift, the print market isn’t just surviving—it appears thriving, providing each established collectors and newcomers an accessible entry level into the artwork world. And that may be precisely what the nonetheless shaky artwork market wants.
