London’s summer season of Modern and Contemporary Art sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips took another step backwards last week mustering a slim £97.8 million – down 25 per cent from last June’s £129.5 million, and a mind-boggling 84 per cent down on the £600 million recorded 10 years ago.

The drop is due in part to Christie’s and Phillips abandoning their high-value evening sales to focus on Frieze week in October, so Sotheby’s was left to show the world what London could do. But while they finished streets ahead of the competition, Sotheby’s £75.7 million total was a severe 41.5 per cent down on last year.

Amid the gloomy statistics, however, comes a ray of hope. A pre-sale report written by number crunchers ArtTactic tracked the booming market for female artists, some of whom were to feature in the Sotheby’s sale. 

The report calculated that between 2018 and 2024, auction sales by female artists rose from $523.7 million to $675.6 million and that the female artists’ share of the market had doubled from 6.2 per cent to 13.5 per cent. In the major museums, Tate and MoMA New York, the percentage of solo shows and acquisitions of works by female artists increased to 50 per cent over the same period. The report also stated that the rate of return (Compound Annual Growth Rate) on works by 20th-century artists that had been bought and resold was much better for female than male artists, supporting the view that women artists have been undervalued.

Although the report was careful to state that it did not constitute investment advice, it was hard to escape the implication that female artists were on an upward trend. And female artists turned out to be the stars of their sale.