Research & Insights
Notes on the African art market
Short write-ups when an index updates, plus themed selections of work pulled from what we track. Written for people who follow this market.
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Industry note
A painting by an African-born artist sold for $10.7 million. Here's who actually got paid
Julie Mehretu's 2023 Sotheby's record was a resale, and under US law outside California, an artist gets nothing from a resale unless a contract says otherwise. What a record headline does and doesn't tell you about where the money went.
September 11, 2026 · Okasen Research
Industry note
A dollar figure for East Africa's art market: $229,727, one November night in Nairobi
Circle Art Agency's decade-old East Africa auction ran its first joint edition with Strauss & Co in November 2025, pulling in $229,727 across 52 lots and bidders from 19 countries. Small next to Sotheby's, and a real sign of a market building infrastructure.
September 11, 2026 · Okasen Research
Industry note
Sotheby's closed its African art department. One painting made more than its best year ever
Sotheby's folded its dedicated African art department into general sales in 2025 while the wider auction market swung from a 45% drop to a partial recovery. Bonhams is the last house running one. The money isn't leaving African art, it's moving to where it's already trusted.
September 11, 2026 · Okasen Research
Industry note
What restitution does to the value of African art: the Benin Bronzes, by the numbers
Germany, the Netherlands, Cambridge, Horniman and three Swiss institutions have all returned or transferred Benin Bronzes since 2022, and the British Museum still holds 900+ under a 1963 law. What almost nobody has published is what any of it is doing to market value.
September 11, 2026 · Okasen Research
Industry note
Inside Africa's biggest art fair: 126 galleries, 30,000 visitors, and no sales total
The 2026 Investec Cape Town Art Fair drew its largest crowd yet, 126 galleries from 34 cities, 30,000 visitors. What isn't published anywhere is what it actually sold. A look at what art-fair scale numbers do and don't tell you.
September 11, 2026 · Okasen Research
Industry note
You can own a piece of a Nigerian painting for three dollars. What that's actually worth
ArtSplit has raised USD 12 million and signed up 50,000+ users splitting African artworks into shares as small as three dollars. Fractional ownership is a real, growing global asset class, and it's a distribution mechanism, not a valuation one.
September 11, 2026 · Okasen Research
Industry note
How African art actually gets into a museum: ask the patrons, not the budget
Tate's Africa Acquisitions Committee and MoMA's Black Arts Council fund major African and diaspora art acquisitions, not off the museum's own budget. Neither publishes what it spends. A look at who actually pays.
September 11, 2026 · Okasen Research
Market commentary
The verified premium: why OKN's most established artists just had a 39% year
Verified 100 is up 39.44% YoY on the deepest sample of any OKN index. We look at what the number does and doesn't prove about verified vs emerging demand, plus a first look at the new Movers 100 list.
September 11, 2026 · Okasen Research
Market commentary
Nigeria's index is up 33%. It's also built on 15 sales
OKN Nigeria's 32.76% YoY move is real but thin, 15 transactions against SA's 341. We walk through what the confidence bands say about how much to trust the headline number.
September 11, 2026 · Okasen Research
Market commentary
OKN Painting 100 is up 58% this year. Here's what's actually behind it
Painting 100 posted the largest move of any live OKN index this vintage, up 58.23% YoY on 159 transactions. We break down the confidence band, the value vs activity split, and set it against Verified, SA, and Nigeria.
September 11, 2026 · Okasen Research
Index update
OKN Works on Paper 100 — September 2026
OKN Works on Paper 100 re-bases to 1000.00 for the 3 September 2026 vintage — the first published point under the rebuilt hedonic-v1 valuation model.
September 3, 2026 · Okasen Research
Index update
OKN Verified 100 — September 2026
OKN Verified 100 re-bases to 1000.00 for the 3 September 2026 vintage — the first published point under the rebuilt hedonic-v1 valuation model.
September 3, 2026 · Okasen Research
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