A new report found that half of the non-bank art loans defaulted in 2024, up 12 percent from 2022.
Deloitte Private and ArtTactic released the Art and Finance Report 2025, listing some interesting and dangerous trends in the art market. The most interesting insight was the significant increase in defaults of non-bank art loans. As a result, many art finance firms are either stopping or reducing their small loans departments. One of them is Harry Smith of Gurr Johns, who said: “The market is split between the best and the rest. Lending on the best is fine—lending on the rest? Absolutely not.”
The default rate is still lower than in 2020, when the COVID pandemic shut down art operations almost completely and led to two-thirds of the loans being defaulted. Despite 2025 being one of the better years for the art market, it could not stop the ongoing shrinkage of the global art market. Despite this, the global art lending market grew in 2025, estimated to be worth almost $40 billion, 12 percent more than the previous year.
The growth in the lending market, however, was dominated by certain peculiar trends. For starters, none of the surveyed banks had a single loan default in 2024, largely due to the banks’ ability to restructure the loans. There was also an overwhelming focus on taking blue-chip, modern, and Impressionist artists as collateral, while indie and rising artists were rejected.
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Rebecca Fine, CEO of Athena Finance, also highlighted another trend of “loan-to-own”. Here, art firms give out riskier loans because they are betting on loan defaults and thus the ability to own the collaterised art work. The report surveyed 21 art lenders, 65 private banks, 37 private firms, 231 artists, and 119 art collectors.
