Skate’s Art Loans Database debut

On 12th October, Art business intelligence firm Skate debuted its Art Loans Database.

The service provides analytics to help measure and track the use of leverage in the art trade.

Skate recently shared intel that from the database, revealing the most active borrowers within the gallery industry.

The data revealed that the Gagosian Gallery uses the most leverage in the gallery world with 146 borrowings whilst JPMorgan Chase is the biggest lender to galleries.

Paul Kasmin was listed as the second biggest borrower in the gallery world at the much lower number of 26 borrowings.

Other galleries that appeared in the top five were Wildenstein & Co, Pace Gallery and David Zwirner.

The database’s ranking of the gallery world’s most active borrowers is based on the number of UCC art-collateral pledges over the last ten years.

Skate said: “In general, art galleries do not use art lending in their business, and the combined art-lending book of the top five galleries is significantly less than the art-lending books of Christie’s and Sotheby’s.”

Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s appeared amongst the lenders that some of the top five galleries had borrowed from.