London's art market looks back to the 1990s

London is buying back the 1990s.

A fascination with Cool Britannia ran through exhibitions, auctions and art fairs in the British capital in October 2026, as dealers reported strong sales for work first made more than 30 years ago, The Art Newspaper reported on 17 October.

The focus was Frieze Week. Frieze London and Frieze Masters, the twin commercial fairs in The Regent's Park in London, ran concurrently from 14 to 18 October 2026 with almost 300 galleries from 48 countries and regions, according to Frieze. The fair was opened in 2003 by Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp.

Museums set the tone. Tate Britain in London staged The 90s: Fashion and Art, featuring Damien Hirst and BLK Art Group founder Keith Piper. The Tate exhibition runs from 8 October 2026 to 14 February 2027. A separate Tate Modern exhibition of Tracey Emin has travelled to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.

Auction houses followed. Christie's in London said its 20th/21st Century Art Evening Sales during Frieze Week 2026 totalled £219 million, led by works by Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Francis Bacon, in published results shared on 15 October. Within that week, Christie's sold £178 million of art from the collection of Monsoon founder Peter Simon, including early works by Mat Collishaw, Wolfgang Tillmans and Hurvin Anderson.

Galleries reported sales at 1990s price points and at today's levels. Three editions of a Tracey Emin neon, meaning individually made copies from a small authorised set, each sold at Xavier Hufkens for £95,000 during Frieze week.

Sadie Coles HQ put Sarah Lucas's 1990s self-portraits on its Frieze London stand. Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert sold early 1990s works by Rachel Whiteread priced up to £60,000, including sculptures from her Torso series. Hollybush Gardens sold most of its Frieze London stand of works by Lubaina Himid, including a ceramic installation and a diptych priced from £45,000 to £120,000. Himid won the Turner Prize, the annual British contemporary art award, in 2017.

What makes this stand out is the memory of the last bust. After the early-1990s crash, it took about 15 years for the art market to get back to its late-1980s pre-recession levels.

For anyone picking up the phone for this story, the message from London this week is simple. The artists who defined the city's 1990s are back on the walls, and buyers are paying for them.