Where is the art buying capital of the US? (2024)

This week we published a report on art buying habits across the US, with Tallahassee, Florida, revealed as the number one art buying city, with 1,303 artworks bought per million inhabitants in 2016. The next city is New Haven, followed by Anaheim, Tampa, Raleigh then San Francisco.

There are also regional differences in what art customers buy, with people in big cities preferring abstract, non-figurative works and those outside of cities preferring animals, flowers and plants and landscapes, sea and sky. And despite New Yorkers not topping the chart, ‘New York’ is the Top 10 searched terms on the site, suggesting that customers in other cities and countries buy artwork of New York.

Our data shows that the whole of the US is busy buying original art for their homes, but also that people in smaller cities and more rural areas are more likely to buy art than New Yorkers – maybe they have more space!

We are now seeing a new generation and a new kind of art buyer emerging, our audience are typically younger than those who buy from galleries, and they don’t necessarily classify themselves as ‘collectors’ – they’re not buying for investment, they’re buying because they want something handmade by a real person on their wall, something no-one else has got.

Top 10 US cities (on customers per 1 million inhabitants):

• Tallahassee, Florida (1,303)
• New Haven, Connecticut (953)
• Anaheim, California (842)
• Tampa, Florida (789)
• Raleigh, North Carolina (770)
• San Francisco, California (726)
• Miami, Florida (620)
• Austin, Texas (592)
• Santa Monica, California 5(78)
• Boston, Massachusetts (572)

Bottom 10 US cities:

• Scott City, Kansas
• Natchez, Mississippi
• Mcdonough, New York
• Saint Paul, Minnesota
• Loma Linda, California
• Humble, Texas
• Lagrange, Georgia
• Madison Heights, Michigan
• Bremerton, Washington
• Sioux Falls, South Dakota