Wealthy Gen Z collectors outspend every age group, Art Basel and UBS find

Wealthy Gen Z collectors are spending more on art than any other age group, the latest Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting finds. The report was written by Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics, and polled 3,100 high-net-worth individuals who each hold at least $1m in personal net wealth, not counting property or privately held businesses.

Gen Z, defined as those aged 20 to 29, made up only 9% of respondents, but that cohort of 279 people was strikingly active. In 2025 its members reported the highest average fine-art expenditure by a considerable margin, spending $347,460 each, up 19% from the year before and more than double any older generation.

Across the full sample, average spending reached $124,265 in 2025, a 13% rise on 2024. The first half of 2026 alone already exceeded Gen Z's full-year 2025 average. McAndrew says the findings overturned a worry widely repeated in the trade that younger buyers are less interested in collecting.

Where the money is going

Purchase counts were broadly similar across generations, so the higher spending came from buying pricier works. Just 1% of collectors acquired a piece above $1m in the survey window, but Gen Z accounted for almost half of those buyers. Some 13% of Gen Z respondents spent over $1m in the first half of 2026 alone, against 3% overall.

The qualification matters: these are not average twenty-something gallery-goers. Family wealth runs through the cohort. While 15% of all respondents said their wealth came mainly from family sources, the figure was 37% among Gen Z. Some 40% of younger collectors said family influence encouraged them, versus 28% of everyone surveyed.

That distinction sharpens against the Great Wealth Transfer the report cites. UBS estimates more than $83 trillion will move globally over the next 20 to 25 years, with nearly 90% of it passing to younger generations. Millennials and Gen X receive it first, but Gen Z stands to inherit significant sums over time.

The survey also measures how concentrated the market has become. Millionaires are just 1.5% of the global adult population in 2025 yet control 48% of global wealth, up from 44% in 2019 and under 40% in 2010. Wealthy collectors are therefore an increasingly important engine of art-market demand as inequality widens.

Art Basel, founded in 1970 in Basel, Switzerland, runs fairs in Miami Beach and Hong Kong as well as its home city. In our guide to the world's recurring luxury events, we ranked any Art Basel edition among the three gatherings that reliably repay attendance from outside one's own sector, alongside Salone del Mobile and the Venice Biennale vernissage.

How young collectors behave

These young collectors are not detached from the in-person art world. Boomers attended the most art-related events, with Gen Z close behind, while millennials turned out least often. Women and Gen Z respondents each went to close to one event a week, the report says.

Aida Valdez, founder of Mad54, a platform staging exhibitions and supporting emerging artists, particularly of Latin American descent, says she sees that engagement firsthand. Gen Z collectors are interested in community-building and in converting their peers into collectors, she observes. The community side of collecting is central to them.

Risk appetite is shifting across the wider sample. The share of collectors buying work by an unfamiliar artist hit a five-year high of 66% in 2025, then fell to 45% in 2026, the lowest level in five years. Arts Economics reads that as rising risk aversion and a turn toward established names. Gen Z stayed more open to discovery, at 56% against 36% for Boomers.

Collectors are also finding ways around the market's traditional structures. Some 69% bought directly from artists, up 6% on the prior survey and more than double the level recorded in 2024. Studio visits accounted for 48% of collectors, 40% commissioned work, and 38% purchased through Instagram. Artist-direct sales were 19% of total spend.

Galleries nonetheless remain the dominant route in, with 87% of collectors buying from a dealer during the period, 75% directly and 62% through an art fair. Two-thirds of those preferring dealers chose to deal remotely, via websites, phone, email or Instagram, rather than in the gallery's physical space.

McAndrew says dealers should hold onto that figure. The softer qualitative data on preferences and motivations tends to be overlooked, she says, yet some of it is among the most important. In-person contact remains strong, but the buying itself is increasingly conducted without setting foot in a gallery.

McAndrew's verdict on the younger cohort is direct. Plenty of voices claim younger collectors are disengaged or distracted by other purchases, she says, but the survey shows the opposite: they were among the most engaged of every age bracket, and their spending levels were remarkable.

The 200-page report also recorded stable Chinese buying and buoyancy at the market's lower end while the top end softens. That lower-end momentum may partly explain the rise of studio and Instagram purchases, where price points and direct relationships are closer to a first-time or younger buyer's reach.

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Images: Art Basel