Identifying the best artists to invest in 2026 requires more than instinct – it demands a clear understanding of the market forces shaping value today. This guide explores the best art to buy for investment, combining five curated artist recommendations with real auction data, cultural trends and buying behaviour, offering a more informed perspective on how to navigate a selective market and make confident, long-term decisions.
What is the Best Art to Invest in 2026?
The heightened momentum that defined the art market in 2021 has largely eased, replaced by a far more selective climate in which collectors are placing greater emphasis on scarcity, resale performance and cultural longevity. Familiar blue-chip names still dominate much of the secondary market, but in 2026, some of the most exciting opportunities are now emerging from categories that until recently sat outside the spotlight.
Female Surrealism is one of the clearest examples. Once considered niche, the category has seen major institutional and commercial reappraisal in recent years.
This guide explores five of the best artists to invest in 2026, from established blue-chip names to artists benefiting from changing cultural and collecting trends. Using auction data, resale performance and broader cultural trends, it examines where activity and long-term confidence are building.
5 Best Artists to Invest In 2026
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Yayoi Kusama - A Market Leader in the Female Artist Boom
Yayoi Kusama, photographed in her Tokyo studio. © Nobuyoshi Araki for WSJ. Magazine
Yayoi Kusama's work combines exceptional cultural recognition with one of the deepest and most liquid markets among female artists. Her paintings have generated more than £658 million at auction over the past decade, while prints have produced £46 million and annual editions turnover exceeded £6.4 million in 2025. Sotheby’s named her the highest-selling female artist globally in 2025, while auction demand extends across multiple price tiers, from accessible editions to major paintings and sculptures. Brand collaborations have also proved commercially significant: Louis Vuitton partnerships have tripled the average auction price of her prints, while carefully controlled releases help limit oversupply.
Average Sale price of a Kusama as per data from Live Art
Few Contemporary artists have combined this market depth with comparable institutional reach. Across her 67-year career, Kusama participated in 1,500+ exhibitions and more than 270 solo shows and retrospectives, attracting millions of visitors. Tate Modern’s 2021-24 presentation sold out within 48 hours, SFMOMA’s Infinite Love sold out despite ticket prices rising 20%, Infinite Obsession in Mexico attracted more than 2 million visitors, and her 2025 NGV exhibition drew 570,000+ visitors, an Australian museum record. This sustained public engagement continues to support long-term recognition of her Pumpkins, Infinity Nets and Infinity Mirror Rooms beyond short-term market cycles.
Yayoi Kusama at Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2026)
Institutional activity in 2026-27 provides several further market catalysts and continues to build on Kusama's legacy. A major European retrospective spanning 70+ years and more than 300 works, including new Infinity Mirror Rooms and site-specific commissions, is travelling through Fondation Beyeler and Museum Ludwig before reaching its final venue at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in September 2026. Goodwood Art Foundation is also presenting works by Kusama within its 70-acre landscape, while Hong Kong has permanently installed a rare three-metre green Pumpkin at The Twins in Kai Tak, the city’s first permanent outdoor public Pumpkin and one of only two green versions worldwide. Long-term Infinity Mirror Room installations at The Broad, Tel Aviv Museum of Art and Crystal Bridges further strengthen her permanent institutional presence.
Museum Voorlinden will also feature Kusama alongside Warhol, Hirst, Emin and Hockney in Celebrating the Icons of Art. Together, these exhibitions, permanent installations and museum acquisitions reinforce Kusama’s position within the contemporary canon and, following her death in 2026, place increasing emphasis on the scarcity and historical significance of her work. This combination of global visibility, institutional validation and established secondary-market liquidity should remain supportive of demand, particularly for rare paintings, early works, iconic Pumpkins and significant editions.
Evolution of the all-time auction record for a female artist as per data from Live Art
2. KAWS - Cultural Demand and Tiered Markets
The artist KAWS with a group of works from his COMPANION series. Photo: © Hye-Ryoung Min. Artworks: © KAWS
Over the past two decades, KAWS has transformed from a street artist into one of the most recognisable names in Contemporary art, combining mass appeal with conceptual depth and building a market that extends from unique paintings and sculptures to editions. Collectibles KAWS figures and global fashion collaborations with Dior, Nike, Uniqlo, Supreme, The North Face, MTV, Sesame Street, Macy’s Parade and Fortnite have expanded his audience far beyond the traditional gallery system, alongside associations with figures including Travis Scott, Jay-Z, Justin Bieber and Pharrell Williams. This reach is reinforced by an active following of 4.2 million on Instagram, around eight times that of Jeff Koons, while his 25-year career now encompasses more than 400 group exhibitions and 60 solo shows.
The market reached peak intensity in 2019, when resale volume approached $95 million and The KAWS Album sold for nearly $15 million. Since then, the top end has corrected, with major works now trading closer to $1.5-1.9 million, but demand has become more selective rather than disappearing. Auction volume has doubled over the past decade, the average auction price of prints remains 184% above 2011 levels despite the post-pandemic correction, and market capitalisation stands at approximately $209.1 million, up 72% since 2019. YTD 2026 sell-through has risen to 89%, its highest level since 2021, while editions, sculptures and collaborations continue to show strong liquidity at lower and middle price points.
Institutional momentum is also strengthening. KAWS is held by 12+ major institutions, including MoMA, SFMOMA, the Brooklyn Museum, Serpentine and the Andy Warhol Museum. KAWS: FAMILY at SFMOMA, his first major West Coast museum exhibition, presented 100+ works across three decades. KAWS: ART & COMIX at Albertina Modern in Vienna places him alongside Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Ad Reinhardt, reinforcing his position within Pop and post-Pop art. KAWS: FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS at Space K in Seoul, running to 27 December 2026, adds further institutional exposure in one of his strongest collector regions.
KAWS: FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS, the first solo museum exhibition in Korea (2026)
Further catalysts extend into 2027. The Hirshhorn’s acquisition of the monumental 14-foot bronze SHELTER, to be installed when its Sculpture Garden reopens on 31 October 2026, gives KAWS permanent representation within a major US national institution and supports the scarcer market for unique and monumental sculpture. From 22 May to 24 October 2027, KAWS will take over the New York Botanical Garden’s 250-acre site with more than two dozen sculptures, new commissions and works never previously shown in North America, in what the institution describes as his largest-scale presentation to date. Against this backdrop, rarer works with clear provenance, early editions and compositions tied to his most recognisable imagery are likely to attract the strongest collector attention.
Average Sale Price at Auction as per data from Live Art
3. Bridget Riley - Redefining Abstraction Through a Female Lens
Bridget Riley working in her studio © Waldemar
At 95, Bridget Riley combines exceptional historical importance with a deep and increasingly valuable secondary market. Her market capitalisation quadrupled from $198 million in 2015 to $664 million in 2025, while the average auction price of her prints has risen 52% in five years and the number of print lots sold has doubled over the past decade. Riley's prints and editions represent 51% of all lots auctioned, providing liquidity at more accessible price points, while her auction record stands at $5.94 million and total auction turnover has exceeded $156 million since 1992.
Bridget Riley's Average Sale Price at Auction as per data from Artprice
Riley’s market is supported by extraordinary institutional recognition. Across a 62-year career, she has participated in 825+ exhibitions and 125+ solo shows and retrospectives, with works held by more than 45 museums, including Tate, MoMA and NGV. The first woman to receive the Venice Biennale’s International Painting Prize, she remains one of the defining figures of post-war British art. Scholarship and authentication are reinforced by three catalogues raisonnés, covering her paintings, large-scale wall works and prints, with more than 600 works documented. Her legacy is also being embedded institutionally through the Bridget Riley Fellowship at the British School at Rome, a Bridget Riley Art Foundation grant supporting a permanent curatorial position at the Courtauld Gallery, sponsorship of the Bridget Riley Drawings Programme at the British Museum, and support for the extension of Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, opened in 2018.
Institutional activity in 2026 provides further market catalysts. A long-term solo presentation opened at Dia Beacon in July, focusing on Riley’s earliest black-and-white paintings from 1961-64. This follows Learning to See at Turner Contemporary in Margate, which surveyed works from the late 1960s through recent canvases and wall paintings, and Point de départ at the Musée d’Orsay, examining Georges Seurat’s formative influence on her practice. Riley is also included in The Sun and The Moon at Saatchi Gallery and recently featured in Minimal at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris.
Bridget Riley at Tate Britain, London (2026) © Max Hetzler
Her institutional position has been further strengthened by the Centre Pompidou’s acquisition of Ascent (Wall Painting), 2023, the first work from Riley’s Wall Painting series to enter the museum and the only example designed in a vertical format. Together, these acquisitions, exhibitions, long-term installations and legacy programmes reinforce Riley’s importance within the post-war canon and, at age 95, place increasing emphasis on scarcity, provenance and historically significant periods, particularly her early black-and-white works, major colour paintings, wall paintings and established print series.
4. David Hockney - Blue-Chip Prints and Market Liquidity
Late artist David Hockney, sitting with his work © BBC
For buyers searching for artwork to invest in, British artist David Hockney has one of the most active, with interest extending from lower-priced editions to rare, high-value works. Since 2000, Hockney’s price index has risen by more than 500%, while his market cap has grown from $42.2 million to more than $2.2 billion in 2025. He now ranks among the highest-selling Contemporary artists by auction turnover, highlighting decades of international buying activity.
David Hockney's Average Sale Price at Auction as per data from Art Price
VIEW ART FOR SALE BY DAVID HOCKNEY
Prints and editions drive much of that activity. Since 2015, they have accounted for 87% of Hockney’s auction volume according to Artprice, creating exceptionally high liquidity and broad participation in the secondary market. In 2025 alone, Hockney’s prints generated £15.8 million from 389 lots, representing a 197% rise in value year-on-year. While works below £50,000 still account for most transactions, rarer editions above £100,000 are making up an increasing share of overall sales value as buyers place greater emphasis on rarity.
Typical Posthumous Pattern © Journal of Cultural Economic
Museum exhibitions and public collections continue to support demand for Hockney’s work, which is held by major institutions including MoMA, Tate Britain, LACMA and the Centre Pompidou. Institutional exposure remains exceptionally strong in 2026 and 2027. Following Hockney 25 at Fondation Louis Vuitton, his first Serpentine exhibition, A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting, presented the 90-metre A Year in Normandie frieze in London alongside new portraits and still lifes, strengthening recognition of his late landscapes and digital practice. This late-period work has received further exposure through Turner Contemporary’s monumental Sunley Window and The Moon Room in the US, while Histories of Landscape: From Monet to Hockney in Paris and Grenoble positions Hockney within the wider canon of European landscape painting. From September 2026, the National Gallery of Australia’s David Hockney: Portraits in Print brings together more than 60 works spanning nearly three decades, highlighting important sitters, lithographs, etchings and his collaboration with Kenneth Tyler, potentially supporting demand for prints and editions.
David Hockney's exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery (2026) © Serpentine Gallery
Looking ahead, Tate Modern will devote its Turbine Hall to a multimedia presentation of Hockney’s opera and stage designs in summer 2027, followed by Tate Britain’s major posthumous retrospective from 7 October 2027 to 20 February 2028, bringing together more than 200 works across seven decades. Together, these exhibitions should sustain international attention while reinforcing the hierarchy of his most historically important paintings, portraits, landscapes, prints and late digital works.
5. Andy Warhol - Marilyn Prints and Enduring Value
Andy Warhol in front of two paintings from his Marilyn series. Photograph by Donald Getsug
Andy Warhol first created his Marilyn works following Marilyn Monroe’s death in 1962, transforming her image into one of the defining motifs of post-war art. More than 60 years later, Marilyn prints remains one of the most recognisable and liquid images in the blue-chip print market. Early auction results in the 1980s saw individual prints sell for under £22,000, while recent examples have achieved more than £333,000, illustrating the scale of appreciation over four decades. Within a global prints and multiples market that generated $526 million in 2025, Warhol’s 1967 Marilyn portfolio remains among his most consistently traded bodies of work.
Andy Warhol's Marilyn Prints Sale Records © Maddox Gallery
VIEW ART FOR SALE BY ANDY WARHOL
Warhol’s market capitalisation stands at approximately $10.9 billion, up 67% since 2016, while average auction prices have risen 30% over the past 15 years. Nearly 11,000 works have been auctioned since 1977, and his $195 million auction record, set in 2022, remains the second-highest price ever achieved at auction. In 2025, Warhol also led the global print market with 1,453 works sold, up 3.8%, generating $38.5 million.
Average Sale Price for Prints at Auction based on data from Art Price
Institutional support is equally extensive. Warhol has featured in 5,500+ exhibitions, including more than 1,000 solo shows and retrospectives, and his works are held by 260+ museums, including Tate, MoMA, LACMA and the National Portrait Gallery. The Warhol Catalogue Raisonné documents 17,000+ works, reinforcing scholarship, authentication and market transparency, while recent collaborations such as Piaget’s limited Warhol watch edition demonstrate his continuing relevance across art, fashion and luxury culture.
2026–27 provides a particularly strong sequence of institutional catalysts. On June 2026, the National Portrait Gallery opened Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait to mark the centenary of Monroe’s birth, placing Warhol’s imagery within the wider history of celebrity, photography and mass media. This follows Andy Warhol: Pop Icon at Lakeside Arts, while Andy Warhol: Art Star at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, the ICA Boston’s 90th-anniversary programme, and a major retrospective at the Fonds Hélène & Édouard Leclerc extend his institutional visibility. In Paris, Andy Warhol: Line and Image at the Musée du Luxembourg from September 2026 to January 2027, presenting over 150 drawings alongside paintings, prints, photographs and archival material.
2027 also marks 40 years since Warhol’s death in February 1987, creating an important commemorative milestone likely to generate further museum, media and collector attention.
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ART INVESTMENT TIP: BLUE-CHIP VS EMERGING ARTISTS – WHICH IS THE BEST INVESTMENT ART? Blue-chip and emerging artists offer very different advantages for collectors building long-term investment portfolios.
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What Makes Art Appreciate in Value?
Art typically appreciates in value through scarcity, institutional visibility and consistent resale history. Artists with limited supply and established auction performance often perform more steadily, particularly when their work occupies a clear position within larger cultural or art-historical movements. These are often the qualities buyers look for when deciding what art to invest in over the long term.
Scarcity is one of the main drivers behind art that appreciates in value, particularly within established blue-chip categories. Limited-edition prints, tightly controlled bodies of work and rare complete portfolios become more desirable as supply decreases, especially when scarcity is coupled with excellent condition and clear provenance.
Museum exhibitions and public collections also play an important role. Artists such as David Hockney and Andy Warhol continue to benefit from ongoing institutional visibility, helping reinforce long-term confidence in their work.
Liquidity is another key factor. Artists with consistent secondary-market trading and resale histories are generally easier to buy and sell during periods of uncertainty. Prints and editions are particularly attractive in this regard because they often mix lower entry points with high transaction volume.
Finally, cultural relevance matters too. Artists whose work reflects the imagery, obsessions and visual language of their time often maintain relevance across generations. KAWS, for example, built his audience through both his art and his connections to fashion, collaborations and collectible culture.
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ART INVESTMENT TIP: WHAT DRIVES ART VALUE IN 2026? Several key factors continue to shape long-term value in today’s art world:
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What Type of Art Is Best to Invest In?
Andy Warhol, Marilyn (F. & S. II.23) (1967)
For buyers asking what is the best art to invest in 2026, blue-chip prints, Contemporary painting and editioned works continue to dominate much of the secondary market, particularly among those focused on long-term value and resale performance.
Global Auction Turnover as per data from ArtPrice
Prints and editions continue to attract attention because they combine lower entry points with strong liquidity, with artists such as David Hockney and Andy Warhol demonstrating the enduring value of highly recognisable imagery, rare editions and complete portfolios.
Distribution of Fine Art Auction proceeds By Category in 2025 © Art price
Artists connected to fashion, design and popular culture are also occupying a larger role within contemporary collecting. KAWS, for example, built a market that extends across Contemporary art, fashion and collectible culture, helping sustain high transaction volume across multiple price points.
Emerging artists can also provide earlier access to developing categories before prices and institutional visibility expand further. Compared with blue-chip artists, they often carry more volatility, but can also present greater upside when linked to movements or markets gaining momentum.
How to Build a Strong Art Investment Portfolio
pairing proven resale performance with exposure to newer areas of collecting.Buyers looking for the best art to buy for investment often balance established sectors with emerging categories, pairing proven resale performance with exposure to newer areas of art collecting.
Prints and editions can provide more accessible entry points into the market, while rarer works and complete portfolios often command significant premiums as scarcity, condition and provenance become increasingly important.
Building a resilient portfolio also requires diversification across different areas of the market rather than concentrating too heavily on a single category. Long-term performance is often shaped gradually through museum visibility, secondary-market activity and broader cultural relevance, making patience and selectivity just as important as timing.
Total Lots Sold as per data from Artprice
To learn more about investing in art, visit Maddox Gallery Art Advisory Services. Explore Investment-Grade Art at Maddox Gallery.
At Maddox Gallery, we work with buyers at every stage of their collecting journey, from clients entering the market for the first time to established buyers growing investment-led portfolios. Through our Art Advisory service, we provide tailored guidance for acquisitions, consignments, valuations and Contemporary art investment strategies.
With expertise spanning blue-chip prints, secondary sales opportunities and up-and-coming artists to invest in, our advisors help clients identify works aligned with both their personal interests and wider industry art trends. We also provide access to discreet private sales, exclusive inventory and the artists driving today’s Contemporary art market.
Schedule a Call with One of our Art Advisors to Discuss the Best Artists to Invest in 2026
The value of investments can go down as well as up, and past performance is no guarantee of future performance. Return figures shown are gross; fees, including a 20% performance commission, may apply. Liquidity is not guaranteed. Terms, limitations, and withdrawal conditions apply. Minimum recommended investment is £20,000. Maddox Advisory is not FCA-regulated and does not give financial advice. Seek independent advice before investing.
