LONDON — By noon on Thursday, the first day open to V.I.P. ticket holders, the aisles of the white tent in Regent’s Park were as crowded as they have been since before the pandemic, and the mood among dealers was something between relief and caution.
“People are here, they are buying, and they are not buying the way they did in 2021,” said Imogen Tarrant, a co-founder of the London gallery Tarrant & Low, which sold 11 works on the first day, all priced between 18,000 and 65,000 pounds. “Nobody is reaching for the million-pound painting on opening morning. They are coming back on Saturday to think about it.”
The fair, which runs through Sunday, brought together about 160 galleries from 43 countries. Its organizers said attendance was tracking about 8 percent above last year. The art market more broadly has had a difficult stretch: auction sales at the three major houses fell roughly 20 percent in 2025, and several mid-sized galleries in London and New York have closed.
What sold this week was, by many accounts, modest in scale and price. Works on paper were in demand, as were paintings by artists under 40 whose prices have not yet climbed. The highest reported sale by Friday evening was a large canvas by a Nigerian-British painter, placed with a European foundation for about 1.2 million pounds. Several dealers said they had deliberately brought smaller works.
“Three years ago I would bring six big paintings and sell four,” said Jonas Kreutzfeld, who runs a gallery in Berlin. “This year I brought 20 small ones and I have sold 14. The total is lower. The number of relationships is higher. I will take that.”
Advisers said the pattern reflects a buyer base that has changed. “The speculators have gone, and good riddance,” said Kwame Asante-Bell, a London-based adviser who works with collectors in Europe and West Africa. “What is left are people who want to live with the thing. They are slower, and they are more loyal.”
The fair’s sister event, Frieze Masters, which shows historical art and antiquities in a separate tent, reported firmer prices, including a 17th-century Dutch still life that sold for about 2.8 million pounds. “The old things are a refuge,” said its director, Annabel Fairweather. “They always are when the ground moves.”
Ms. Tarrant, closing up her booth on Friday, said she would be happy if the weekend simply held steady. “Two years ago we were asking whether fairs had a future,” she said. “Now we are asking whether a painting will sell by Sunday. That is an enormous improvement in the quality of our problems.”
A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 11, 2026, Section C, Page 14 of the European edition with the headline: At Frieze London, the Crowds Are Back. The Checkbooks Are Smaller..
