{"id":934259,"date":"2026-10-15T18:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T18:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/934259\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T18:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T18:42:14","slug":"a-fine-arts-executive-says-the-internet-and-new-wealth-are-supercharging-gen-zs-art-buying-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/934259\/","title":{"rendered":"A fine arts executive says the internet and new wealth are supercharging Gen Z’s art buying habits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gen Z is stepping into new wealth; the young generation amassed $9 trillion in income back in 2023, and by 2030, their earnings are expected to<\/a> shoot up to $36 trillion. And in spending their riches, the 20-somethings are already snapping up fine art and luxe collectibles. Last year Gen Z spent twice as much on art compared to every other generation, according to recent data from Swiss bank UBS\u2014and a fine arts expert says their buying habits are reshaping the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of people now that have a lot of money and they don\u2019t know what to do with it,\u201d\u00a0 Anita Heriot, president of The Fine Art Group Americas, told leadership editor Claire Zillman onstage at Fortune\u2019s annual Most Powerful Women conference in Santa Barbara, California.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m talking about a lot of the tech, sudden-wealth scenarios, and they buy what looks cool, and they don\u2019t really think about [it],\u201d she continued. \u201cThey don\u2019t think about price.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heriot said they pay no mind to price tags, as they don\u2019t know how to understand the value around the world. Gen Zers have been spending big on dinosaur bones, sneakers, $20 million Pok\u00e9mon cards, the art executive explained. Beyond collectibles, she\u2019s seen that young buyers have a strong interest in artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat.<\/p>\n

Plus, they\u2019re far less picky about how they snatch up multimillion-dollar art. Historically, older generations went in-person to art galleries or auctions to view pieces before deciding to put in an offer. But Gen Zers are just fine growing their collections from behind a laptop; when the COVID-19 shutdown forced them to stay at home, online bidding shot up 450%, Heriot said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, this generation, they don\u2019t mind buying off a JPEG. If it looks cool on a computer, they\u2019ll buy it,\u201d the The Fine Art Group president said. She believes Gen Zers are outspending all others due to their online shopping habits, and a \u201cdesire to start spending\u201d their sudden wealth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The young generation\u2019s interest in art will be no passing fad\u2014but what they put within that category could shift, according to Heriot. While they may be buying up paintings and luxe collectables now, she predicts that they\u2019ll seek out items that remind them of their youth, just like generations before them. Baby boomers bought up cars from the 60s, Heriot noted, hoping to reconnect with the experiences from their memories. She explained that it\u2019s typical for people to \u201cbuy heavy\u201d into that period of their culture. 1990s and 2000s-era items like the iPhone Classics or Xbox could become big-money items as Gen Zers age and yearn for that nostalgia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important to look at art with a big \u2018A.\u2019 I think there\u2019s going to be a huge interest in those objects that they grew up with,\u201d the executive explained. \u201cFor instance, we\u2019re seeing a huge interest in buying Audis. Like, who\u2019s buying an old Audi from 1982? They are. So that\u2019s what we\u2019re starting to see, and I think we\u2019ll continue to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gen Z is stepping into new wealth; the young generation amassed $9 trillion in income back in 2023,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":934260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[9930,256713,320380,76,354,355,1846,8913,45,49,48,24751,569,356,75,8980,2154,244,12171,41128,3499,3506,6893,1822],"class_list":["post-934259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-art","tag-art-auction","tag-art-sales","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-auction","tag-baby-boomers","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-collectibles","tag-culture","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-gen-z","tag-income","tag-internet","tag-millennials","tag-most-powerful-women","tag-online","tag-pokemon","tag-sneakers","tag-wealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}