Invaluable

Set of 6 Lionel Messi 2022 FIFA World Cup Match Worn Shirts. Sold for $7,803,000 via Sotheby's (December 2023) Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes Last updated: 06.29.26 As fans enjoy the biggest World Cup in history across the USA, Mexico, and Canada, most will be focused on who will lift the trophy at the MetLife Stadium, but collectors are already asking a different question: what will be worth owning when the final whistle blows?

From sun kissed visions of California to psychedelic Yorkshire landscapes, David Hockney never stopped breaking barriers to become one of contemporary art’s most important figures until his death on 11 June 2026 at the age of 88, but it was amid the bright blue skies and swimming pools of California where he found true freedom and fulfilment.

Few could have predicted that a honey-loving bear would become one of the world’s most beloved literary characters, yet when A.A. Milne’s The Wrong Sort of Bees appeared in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve 1925, Winnie the Pooh began a journey that would take him far beyond the Hundred Acre Wood, and a little more than a century later his gentle adventures continue to delight readers.

Curtain for the ballet "Parade" Pablo Picasso. Image courtesy of WikiArt. Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes Last updated: 06.08.26 By the dawn of the 1910s, Pablo Picasso was enjoying a meteoric ascent as a member of the artistic avant-garde. Pioneering Cubist aesthetics and consistently pushing experimental bounds of material and representation in his work, Picasso, it seemed, had achieved new artistic heights.

From Georgia O’Keeffe finding creative freedom in the deserts of New Mexico to David Hockney rediscovering the electric greens of his Yorkshire roots, some of art’s most memorable works were born from homecomings. Whether returning to familiar fields, gardens, and landscapes, or finding solitude in a newfound home from home, a select band of artists have over the years returned to the place they knew best to produce something new and exciting.

Contemporary art increasingly rewards collaboration – through funding structures, institutional partnerships, collective studios, and community engagement. There are artists choosing to present their work collectively, such as the architecture collective Assemble, won the Turner Prize. And yet the trope of solitary genius artist exists for a reason, too. Some of the most singular artistic practices have emerged through isolation.

Edgar Degas – Jockey blessé, um 1896-1898. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Famous artists are often synonymous with their most identifiable works, from John Singer Sargent and his luminous portraits to Andy Warhol and his Campbell’s soup cans. These iconic masterpieces often come to define entire artistic careers and movements.

Marc Chagall, Le Baou de Saint-Jeannet, esquisse. Sold for CHF 180,000 via Galerie Kornfeld Auktionen AG (June 2022) Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes Last updated: 05.18.26 From the brilliant glisten of rays across the sea’s diamond surface at dawn to the golden ambers that warm the coastline at dusk, the Mediterranean – particularly along the southern stretch of France – provides a light like no other in the world.

The Yellow Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace is rife with chinoiserie designs.

The 2026 global contemporary art market remains highly concentrated, with the 72% of auction sales still taking place in the U.S., China, and the U.K. As a result, artists outside these primary centres have historically had limited access to international auction markets. In an auction context, “regional artists” refers not to local scenes, but to broader geographies such as Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.