Analysing the impact of BREXIT on artists careers within the United Kingdom by examining the market for 'fine art'

The rapid increase in art sales over the last 30 years has highlighted the importance of the art market as both a generator of wealth for investors as well as a generator of income for artists. However, post the announcement of Brexit in 2016, there is growing concern by both institutions and artists that the trade in art will be affected by the events surrounding Brexit. This has been iterated by the Arts Council of England, which mentions that there is a negative market influence generated through the 'Brexit' event being transferred into the art markets. The art market itself has two distinct sectors, namely the primary and the secondary art markets, which have particular behavioural patterns unique to each sector. This paper makes use of the 'Brexit' to estimate the political economic effect on both the primary and the secondary art markets within the United Kingdom. This should be of interest to artists, art dealers and art investors alike, with particular consideration for the role of artists and their careers within the changing global political and economic environments as we have seen before in countries such as Germany during the 40's, USSR during the 50's, Cuba during the 60's, and so on. The growth of technology on an international level has impacted upon the role of the distribution of information which has impacted the art market in different ways. Two sets of models are constructed in this paper to examine the impact of Brexit on the primary and secondary art markets within the United Kingdom. The findings suggest that the 'Brexit' event has had a distinctly negative impact on the primary art market and a distinctly positive impact on the secondary art market.