The big news about this issue of American Fine Art Magazine is that it contains our annual guide to 2026 auctions. Our auction-related content begins on Page 49 and for the next 44 pages (!), you will hear expert assessments of how the market fared last year, what was hot, what was not, its current overall state, and projections for 2026 (spoiler alert: the forecast is favorable). You will learn about top auction houses in the country, their biggest sales of 2025 and what they have lined up for the near and distant future. We also have in-depth coverage of the busy fall season of sales, and previews of the fine art auctions happening this month and beyond.
Our auction section is robust, but this issue contains a lot of other material that deserves equal attention. Don’t miss our feature on the Chrysler Museum’s exhibition of multi-media artworks and objects by Louise Nevelson and Esphyr Slobodkina, two truly extraordinary women who believed, as our writer put it, that art “permeated every aspect of human life and was the ultimate celebration of human excellence.”
I also want to draw attention to a profile of art dealer Vincent Vallarino on Page 42, the first in a series of Q&As we’re calling Tête-à-Tête. We hear from a lot of scholars in various sectors of the art market in these pages—museum curators, auction house specialists, art show producers. But when it comes to gallery owners and private dealers, we tend to focus on their exhibitions and their artwork. Rarely do we hear from these professionals about what goes on behind the scenes in their sphere of the art world—what being in the business actually entails, what led them down that career path in the first place, and what it takes to make it in an enterprise that is anything but easy, and requires no small amount of risk. Vallarino has more than 50 years in the fine art business under his belt, and we got into all of these topics and more. It was an enlightening discussion and I came away from it with a lot of questions I didn’t even know I had, answered.
We hope you do too. After all, the more voices we bring into our pages, the more well-rounded our understanding of the art industry and how it operates becomes, an invaluable resource whether you are a collector, consignor, considering a career in the art world, or simply looking to learn more about an aspect of it you knew little about.
Enjoy the January/February issue!
Sarah Gianelli
Managing Editor
sgianelli@americanartcollector.com
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