The data analyzed comprises 45 art fairs featured on Artsy that opened between January 1st and June 30th. Over 35,000 artworks were uploaded to more than 2,300 virtual fair booths by more than 1,800 galleries participating in these fairs. Demand was judged based on an artist’s share of inquiries placed on all artworks within the set.

Roughly half of all visitors to fair pages in the first half of 2019 originated in the U.S., potentially skewing results of the analysis based on the preferences of American collectors (a full note on methodology is available at the end of this article). However, just over a third of the galleries that participated in the online fair presentations are American galleries, and the fairs analyzed reflect the global nature of the art market, spanning from ZONAMACO and SP-Arte to Art Basel in Hong Kong and Masterpiece London.

Artworks by Yayoi Kusama were far and away the most in-demand at fairs in the first six months of 2019, and accounted for 1.29% of all inquiries. One-and-a-half times more inquiries were placed on her works compared to works by Andy Warhol, even though only 23% more work by Kusama was offered for sale. Aside from her, however, the 30 most inquired-upon artists are male.

The divisive art-market darling KAWS generated the second-most demand, but was trailed by just 0.03% by a less-expected artist: Nathaniel Mary Quinn. Chicago-born Quinn’s collage-like works in paint, charcoal, and pastel likely became much hotter commodities when shown by Half Galleryat the Dallas Art Fair in April, less than two weeks after he signed up with Gagosian. Artists drafted onto team Gagosian—like Jennifer Guidi

 and Katharina Grosse

—have experienced similar spikes in collector demand and prices in the years since signing on.

See Artworks by the Most In-Demand Artists

See Artworks by the Most In-Demand Artists

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Another fast-rising market star, Derrick Adams, was the ninth-most inquired-upon artist at art fairs in the first half of 2019. Adams was ubiquitous during that period—over the same six months, he had solo exhibitions at Luxembourg & Dayan in New York, Rhona Hoffman Galleryin Chicago, and one of the final shows at Mary Boone’s gallery before she closed up shop and began her prison sentence.

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Pair: Interior Life (Man) & Woman

Derrick Adams

Pair: Interior Life (Man) & Woman, 2019

David Benrimon Fine Art

A more established but no less unexpectedly in-demand artist so far this year is Mel Bochner

, the seventh-most inquired-upon artist in Artsy’s fair data. Bochner had four solo shows in the first half of 2019—including exhibitions at Marc Selwyn Fine Art in Los Angeles, the Metropol Kunstraum in Munich, and his London gallery Simon Lee. He also notched one of Art Basel in Basel’s most popular artworks with the Instagram set. Everybody is Full of Shit (2018), shown in the Two Palms booth, featured a mirror with what looked like steam, into which someone appeared to have scrawled the work’s titular phrase.

Among emerging artists, the most enticing to collectors by far was Alex Gardner

, the painter in his early thirties known for his exquisitely rendered images of black figures within surreal, monochromatic spaces. His work drove 2.94% of all inquiries on pieces by emerging artists featured on Artsy fair pages in the first half of 2019. Gardner’s dominance in the emerging artist category was driven by his solo booth with New York gallery The Hole at The Armory Show in March. Gallery owner Kathy Grayson reported selling out the entire booth, with works priced between $15,000 and $28,000.

See Artworks by the Most In-Demand Emerging Artists

See Artworks by the Most In-Demand Emerging Artists

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The widespread popularity of Gardner’s works is consistent with the market’s current appetite for figurative paintings. Buzzy painters such as Grace Weaver

 and Louis Fratino

 (who opened his first solo show with Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in April) were also among the most sought-after emerging artists of the spring fair season. Artsy data shows especially strong interest in figurative painting by African artists: The top 30 emerging artists include the Cameroonian painter Ajarb Bernard Ategwa

, the Johannesburg-based painter Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi

, and the Nigerian painter Ndidi Emefiele

.

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