Young Artists Rode a $712 Million Boom. Then Came the Bust.

Artists saw six-figure sales and heard promises of stardom. But with the calamitous downturn in the art market, many collectors bolted — and prices plummeted.

How did the best years of Amani Lewis’s career turn into the worst time of the artist’s life?

First came the meteoric rise. A haunting painting Lewis made in 2020 sold at auction just a year later for $107,100, more than double its estimate. Two other works had recently tripled expectations, and a collector offered $150,000 in cash for new pieces fresh from the studio. There were shows in Paris and Miami — Lewis had seemingly conquered the market at age 26, upgrading to a new art studio and a Tesla.

But when the original painting re-emerged at auction in June and its price plunged to $10,080 — losing 90 percent of its value — the party was over. By then, Lewis had stopped renting a $7,000-a-month luxury apartment in Miami and temporarily moved in with their brother.

“It was such a nice high and then it drops,” the artist, now 29, said. “It feels like, ‘We’re done with Amani Lewis.’”

Over the last year, as money drained from the art market, young art stars around the world experienced dramatic setbacks that submerged their careers.

The Ghanaian artist Emmanuel Taku had a painting sell in 2021 for $189,000 only to watch its price drop in March to $10,160 at auction. Cubist-style portraits by Isshaq Ismail, which sold for as much as $367,000 two years ago, have failed to rise beyond $20,000. Allison Zuckerman, a Brooklyn artist, also felt the market’s contractions; her riotous painting “Woman With Her Pet” sold for $212,500 three years ago, but mustered only $20,160 at auction in June.