There are certain things in the art world you can almost set your watch by. Frieze brings momentum. Auction season creates opportunity. And August? August brings silence.
It has been that way for as long as I can remember.
Most established galleries learnt this lesson years ago. Rather than fighting against the tide, many simply close for a couple of weeks, knowing that clients, collectors and decision-makers are scattered across Europe, sitting on beaches, climbing mountains or trying to forget about work altogether. Business pauses because life takes priority.
The years immediately after the pandemic blurred those familiar rhythms. The traditional twelve-month cycle became unpredictable. Buyers appeared in unusual months, transactions happened outside their normal windows, and trying to anticipate market activity became increasingly difficult.
For a while, it genuinely felt as though the old rules no longer applied. But over the last couple of years, something has happened. The market has settled into a more recognisable pattern, and with it has come the return of what I can only describe as the August curse.
So why does it happen?
Travel is undoubtedly part of it. Many collectors spend weeks away from home during August, and purchasing a significant artwork rarely sits at the top of the holiday agenda. Galleries reduce their programmes, shipping becomes slower, framers and logistics companies operate with skeleton staff, and conversations that might normally conclude in a matter of days drift into September.
Then there's the weather.
When the sun finally arrives in Britain, few people want to spend their afternoons discussing provenance, valuations or acquisition strategies. Attention naturally shifts elsewhere. Even those still working seem to operate at half pace, emails take longer to answer, decisions are postponed, and momentum disappears.
Perhaps it's something less tangible too. There is an odd lethargy that seems to settle over the month. Not just within the art market, but across business more generally. It's as if everyone silently agrees that August isn't the time to make big decisions.
Understanding all of this intellectually is one thing. Living through it is another. Many years ago I made a conscious decision that I wasn't going to judge myself or my business by what happened in August. Every single year, without exception, I found myself working just as hard, putting in the same effort, chasing the same opportunities, only to reach the end of the month questioning whether I'd somehow lost my touch.
The evidence suggested otherwise.
September always arrived, conversations restarted, transactions completed and the world carried on exactly as it always had. Yet somehow, every August, I found myself falling into the same trap. These days I try to approach the month differently. Rather than forcing activity that simply isn't there, I use the time to think, write, refine processes and prepare for the final quarter of the year. It's a far healthier use of my energy than measuring my worth against a market that has temporarily pressed pause.
That doesn't mean it's easy.
If I'm honest, I still struggle to completely down tools. There's always that temptation to push harder, send one more email, make one more call or convince myself that everyone else is somehow doing more than I am. Perhaps that's simply the addict in me. Seven years of sobriety has taught me a great deal about recognising old patterns, but it hasn't stopped my mind trying to convince me that doing more is always the answer.
We're only a week into August, and I've been doing my best to hold that line. But there's a strange underlying fog that arrives every year. It whispers that the quietness is somehow personal. That the lack of movement means something is wrong. That I should be doing more.
Experience tells me none of that is true. The challenge isn't surviving August. It's remembering that markets have seasons just as surely as the weather does. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do isn't fight against them, but trust that, just as it always has, September will arrive soon enough.