A large transfer of wealth from Britain's post-war baby-boomer generation is expected to include significant amounts of artwork, much of it of questionable value, according to a MoneyWeek article. The value of the so-called great wealth transfer in Britain alone has been estimated at £5.5 trillion over the next 30 years.
Baby boomers were prolific art buyers, and the number of artists whose works had sold at auction grew from 8,300 in 1988 to 90,275 in 2012, according to the Artnet Price Database. Felix Salmon, writing on Bloomberg, said the sheer tonnage of boomer-owned art is vast and that total demand does not come close to the supply that is about to arrive.
The big auction houses are only interested in the most valuable artworks. While collections such as those of businessman Joe Lewis, 89, which sold for £296.3 million in late June, and the estate of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, which fetched $1.6 billion in 2022, attract major buyers, other inheritors may be lucky to sell a painting or two to a local auctioneer. Salmon suggested the whole lot is more likely to be sold to a professional estate liquidator.
Owners of unwanted artworks could give them away. The cultural gifts scheme and acceptance in lieu can both be used in Britain to reduce inheritance tax bills, but the artworks must be of sufficiently high calibre and a museum or gallery must be willing to take them. That is not guaranteed, as it involves time and expense, from cataloguing and restoring artworks to insuring and keeping them safe, and museums are not short of offers.
Inheritors may ultimately keep the works, which the original collector may have intended. However, fashions change and works that seemed fresh half a century ago may now appear dull, or the artist may have faded from memory, rendering their works worthless.