Dear Readers, 

As we approach the holiday season, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued trust and support. The past year has seen unprecedentedly rapid change in our industry as we have adapted to the challenges brought about by the global pandemic, fundamentally shifting the ways in which we discover, evaluate, and trade fine art and collectibles. As the art community embraces this new digital-first era, we at Artnet have endeavored to provide an ecosystem for you all that makes the art market transparent, efficient, and empowering—just as my father Hans Neuendorf set out to do when he founded the company as the first-ever online art platform.  

Hans believed that data, information and technology could revolutionize what has often been an opaque and unwelcoming art market, giving people the tools and the confidence to meaningfully engage with art. Since then, as the industry has evolved, so have we. Building on Artnet’s industry transformative data and analytics, I am very proud to have witnessed Artnet News become such an invaluable informational resource for our industry. It is remarkable that I am able to reach such a vast and dedicated audience of tens of millions of readers with this letter today. This year, in a further evolution to better serve our core audience of art world professionals, we also launched Artnet News Pro to provide mission-critical insights on how to navigate the art market. I am happy to say we already have thousands of subscribers, who we look forward to offering expanded amenities in the new year.

Frank Stella, Rozdol I, sold for $1.1 million in May 2021 on Artnet Auctions.

I would also like to thank our international network of galleries and auction house partners, who together make Artnet a dynamic, global, and diverse marketplace with over 250,000 carefully selected artworks to discover. And, at Artnet Auctions, our innovative online-only model continues to prove its worth. By focusing on curation, liquidity, and low transaction costs, Artnet Auctions has become the fourth largest auction house globally for postwar and contemporary art online—putting us alongside Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips. We are tremendously excited for what the future can bring for Artnet’s marketplace as we are poised to deliver a totally new user experience in 2022.

This year, we also witnessed the seemingly unstoppable growth of the NFT market. True to our digitally native heritage, Artnet will continue to guide and inform our community through this period of transformation, bridging and reducing the gap between the traditional art market and the crypto space. Just last week ArtNFT, our new NFT platform, launched its first sale. Soon, it will grow into an expertly curated, on-chain marketplace for NFTs. Stay tuned for expanded offerings here next year. 

All this is made possible thanks to the active support of all of our stakeholders. This past year we have seen historic levels of growth in our marketplace, audience, and in our revenues. As a result, Artnet’s share price has increased over 200 percent (Xetra) since the beginning of the pandemic. We aim to step up the pace of our product development as we pursue our growth journey.  

With the year coming to a close I’d like to thank our team, our readers, our friends, and our shareholders for your invaluable support and trust. And to anyone new to Artnet who wants to join us on our journey, there has never been a better time to help build the art world of the future. Here’s to an exciting 2022!

Sincerely, 

Jacob Pabst, Artnet CEO