IFPDA Print Fair 2026: Sales, Attendance, Drawings Shift

The 2026 edition of the annual IFPDA Print Fair closed Sunday with record attendance and strong sales, offering an early look at what happens when a fair built on prints starts to stretch beyond them.

Held at the Park Avenue Armory, this year’s edition drew more than 21,000 visitors over four days, including roughly 5,000 on opening night, according to organizers, with ticket sales up 20 percent from last year. 

The bigger story, though, wasn’t the crowds—it was the fair’s evolving identity.

After a membership vote last year, the organization formally expanded to include drawings dealers, rebranding as the International Fine Prints and Drawings Association. The shift reflects a broader change in how collectors and institutions approach works on paper, even if the market has been slower to catch up.

On the fair floor, that change felt more gradual than sweeping. Some dealers leaned into it, mixing drawings into their booths, while others stuck to prints. The result was a fair that looked much like it always has—busy, focused, and anchored by a steady stream of mid-market sales.

Hauser & Wirth had in its booth more than 30 prints and works on offer, priced between $5,000 and $250,000. Two Palms, one of New York’s top multiples printers, sold out an edition of 28 Cecily Brown etchings, priced at $7,500 each. The gallery also placed cast-paper works by Mickalene Thomas at $80,000 apiece. Elsewhere, dealers reported six-figure sales, including works by David Hockney and Rashid Johnson at Galerie Maximillian, alongside a steady clip of lower-priced material. 

That pattern will sound familiar. Prints have been one of the more resilient corners of the market in recent years, driven in part by younger buyers and collectors priced out of painting and sculpture but able to scope up prints by blue-chip names at lower price points. Much of the growth has come from volume rather than trophy prices—a lot of works moving at levels that still feel within reach.

But that part of the market comes with its own pressures. As the latest UBS Art Market Report notes, rising costs have made fairs harder to sustain for dealers working at lower price points—particularly in prints and photography—where margins are thinner and sales volume is more important to making up costs. At the same time, prints and multiples have quietly gained share, accounting for roughly 12 percent of dealer sales by value, even as works on paper overall have slipped slightly.

You could see that mix in the crowd, too. The fair drew more than 100 curators to a newly launched summit and hosted a slate of programming with artists including Julie Mehretu, Hank Willis Thomas, and Derrick Adams, alongside a benefit honoring Christophe Cherix, director of the Museum of Modern Art since September and the museum’s former chief curator drawings and prints. 

For IFPDA executive director Jenny Gibbs, that activity was by design. “My goal is to be a print world Übermensch, bringing people together to share knowledge and build connections,” she told ARTnews by email, pointing to the week’s mix of institutional programming and off-site events. “And not coincidentally, the goodwill and excitement around these events translated into very, very strong sales.”

Gibbs added that collectors did not draw sharp distinctions between prints and drawings. “Collectors and institutions responded to the material holistically, often moving fluidly between editions and unique works on paper, which is very much in line with how the field is evolving,” she said.

Whether that shift will meaningfully reshape the fair is still an open question. For now, the early returns suggest continuity more than transformation: a fair that remains rooted in the part of the market where most of the action now sits, even if that part is getting harder to sustain.