‘I wanted to build a profile of the female collector – not only to see what women were buying, and how they were buying, but also, given the very uncertain market we’re in, to look at their risk sensitivities and willingness to take risks,’ says Dr. Clare McAndrew, the founder of Arts Economics and author of the report.
Across both genders, the average spending in 2024 was USD 438,990 on an average of 14 works. This high average (the median was a more modest USD 24,000) was primarily driven by a small group of female collectors from Mainland China, whose averages were more than twice those of their male compatriots.
‘There are pockets of very high spending,’ McAndrew says. ‘In Mainland China in particular, a small but very wealthy group of women are spending a lot on art – quite a bit more than men. Over the past few years their influence has grown – building private collections, setting up museums. It’s a small cohort, but they’re holding their own in terms of purchasing power.’