Artnet

Artnet is an art market website based in New York City. Established in 1989 to provide consumers with access to databases of historical prices paid for works of art at auction, Artnet expanded in the 1990s to host its own online auctions and provide digital platforms for art galleries to publish their exhibitions online. The website has also hosted two successive digital publications focused on art world and market news, Artnet Magazine (1996–2012), and Artnet News (2014–present).

Artnet is owned by Artnet AG, a German company previously listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Artnet AG was acquired by the American venture capital firm Beowolff Capital in 2025 and taken private.

History and operations

1989–1999: Founding and launch, magazine, dot-com era IPO

Pierre Sernet, a French art collector, developed a system in the late 1980s to share images of artworks and their associated prices at auction through a digital database.[1] In 1989, he founded the Centrox Corporation in New York City to monetize his new system, providing customers software for home computers that connected them to Centrox's database of art and auction prices, which the company eventually called Artnet.

Products and services

Price databases

Artnet's original core services are its databases of art prices, primarily from public auctions, giving subscribers access to historical sales results. The New York Times described Artnet's database system as the "Bloomberg terminal of the auction business".

At its start and throughout the 1990s, the company provided subscribers with a software for their home computers that would allow them to access Artnet's databases through a modem internet connection.[2] Although the software was free, Artnet charged customers between $1.25 and $1.75 a minute to access the price databases.[2][44]

In 1996, the company said its databases had prices for 1.4 million artworks.[2] That figure rose to over 2 million in 1999,[6] 3.5 million in 2007,[45] and 10 million in 2016.[46]

Online auctions

Artnet first launched a system for online auctions in 1999, immediately prior to launching an IPO in Germany.[6] The company claimed that it sold over $1 million worth of art within six months of launching the auctions.[47] Although the auctions helped raise investment interest in the company,[3] they failed to attract significant enough numbers of buyers and sellers of art to be sustainable. The company scaled back its auctions in late 2000 before ending them completely soon after.[11][13] The auctions lost a total of $11 million for the company.[48]

The company relaunched its online auctions in 2008.[13]

Gallery network

In 1996 the company created an online system for art galleries to display and sell work digitally, which eventually developed into the company's gallery network. Within several weeks of launching, around 150 galleries joined the platform, mainly in New York and Germany. It originally cost galleries close to $1000 to list a full exhibition on the platform.[2] At its launch, very few galleries were willing to publicly add prices to artworks displayed on Artnet.[52] More than 1700 galleries had joined the service to create online showrooms by 2007.[45]

Auction and art fair collaborations

Artnet has also developed online art viewing and purchasing platforms in collaboration with art fairs. In 2007, the company launched a collaboration with the Swiss art fair Art Basel and its subsidiary Art Basel Miami Beach to document and display art from the fairs online.[53][54]

type	Stock corporation (Aktiengesellschaft)
owner	Beowolff Capital
founder	Pierre Sernet
foundation	1989 (as Centrox Corporation)
location city	New York, Berlin, London
industry	Art market
homepage	artnet.com

History and operations

1989–1999: Founding and launch, magazine, dot-com era IPO

2000–2009: Financial difficulties, ending and relaunching auctions

2010–2019: Neuendorf steps down, end of Artnet Magazine, launch of Artnet News

2020–present: Company taken private

Digital publications

Artnet Magazine (1996–2012)

Artnet News (2014-present)

Products and services

Price databases

Online auctions

Gallery network

Auction and art fair collaborations

Further reading

External links

References