1989–1999: Founding and launch, magazine, dot-com era IPO Pierre Sernet, a French art collector, developed a system in the late 1980s to share images of artworks and their associated prices at
auction through a digital database. In 1989, he founded the Centrox Corporation in New York City to monetize his new system, providing customers software for home computers that connected them to Centrox's database of art and auction prices, which the company eventually called Artnet.
Hans Neuendorf, a German
art dealer, began to invest in the company shortly after its founding in 1989, having first met Sarnet and learned about his database idea at an art fair in Paris. Artnet also established a new online system in 1996 for art galleries to display and sell work through the Artnet website. In part to increase attention on the company in the lead-up to the IPO, Artnet launched an
online auction system in March 1999, allowing buyers and sellers to transact completely digitally and bypass traditional auction houses. Several investors in the company who had purchased stock before the IPO were accused of selling their stakes when the shares had risen to their peak, before the end of the required
lock-up period. the accusations, combined with renewed skepticism about the economic fundamentals of the company, led to significant sell-offs in the stock. By the end of the year, the stock was trading below €10 per share. In the late 1990s, the company joined a lawsuit led by the
American Civil Liberties Union to stop enforcement of the newly passed
Child Online Protection Act in the United States, a federal law to restrict access on the internet for material deemed harmful to minors.
2000–2009: Financial difficulties, ending and relaunching auctions Artnet scaled back its online auctions in 2000 to cut costs, eliminating 17% of its work force and pivoting to auctions of exclusively prints and photographs, ending its sales of paintings and other art. It soon ended its auction services entirely, due in part to a lack of sufficient traffic to the website to sustain the sales, according to Neuendorf. Within two years of going public, the company had spent the entirety of the funds raised from its IPO and lost a significant amount of its stock value. After debuting at €46 a share in 1999, the company was trading for 25 cents per share in 2003. The company created a new financial
index in 2006 to track the average prices at auction of works by the most commonly traded artists. Artnet relaunched its online auction service in 2008, with Neuendorf saying the website had gained enough viewers for the auctions to be financially sustainable. The company simultaneously shut down
Artnet Magazine, saying that the publication had struggled financially for too long. Also in 2012, Rüdiger Weng, a minority shareholder and owner of a German wholesale art business attempted to acquire a majority stake in the company with Russian financier Sergey Skaterschikov and Luxembourg company Redline Capital Management, but failed in his bid. Weng, who had owned stock in the company since the IPO, disagreed with Artnet's focus on unprofitable media ventures and lack of dividends for shareholders. In late 2013, the year after closing
Artnet Magazine, the company announced that it had hired critic and journalist
Benjamin Genocchio as founding editor-in-chief of
Artnet News, a new journalism-oriented digital publication on the Artnet website.
Artnet News began publishing in February 2014. Weng again began trying to purchase an ownership stake in Artnet in 2016 with venture capitalist Andreas Tielebier-Langenscheidt, later acquiring additional shares from investor Robert de Rothschild resulting in Weng's stake rising above 25%. Neuendorf and Artnet leadership accused Weng and Tielebier-Langenscheidt of speaking negatively about the company in the media despite being invested in the business. The following year, the company purchased the assets of the art sales platform Artlist.
2020–present: Company taken private, merger with Artsy Weng used his minority stake in Artnet AG to block a
recapitalization of the company in 2020 that would have allowed for additional investments, alleging that Pabst's high compensation package and a large consulting contract awarded to Neuendorf's separate firm were draining the company's finances. The dispute between Weng and the Neuendorf family continued throughout the early 2020s, with several shareholder meetings canceled or postponed as the two parties attempted to take or keep control of the company; Weng again blocked a new recapitalization of Artnet in 2023. In early 2025, Neuendorf announced his retirement from Artnet's board. Shortly after, following the accidental public release of an
internal audit document alleging financial and legal mismanagement at Artnet, Weng again attempted to take control of the company's
supervisory board, having become the largest single shareholder at 29%. The Neuendorf family allied with American
venture capitalist Andrew E. Wolff, a minority shareholder, to constitute a new supervisory board without any of Weng's chosen members. Weng subsequently sold his stake in the company. Wolff and his firm Beowolff Capital acquired a majority stake in Artnet in May 2025, buying out remaining shareholders to take the company private and delist it from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The month before taking ownership of Artnet, Beowolff Capital purchased a controlling stake in the separate art market website
Artsy. Pabst resigned as CEO in September 2025 immediately before the company's
annual general meeting, saying he and Wolff disagreed on Pabst's leadership. In April 2026, Beowolff Capital combined Artnet and Artsy, elevating Jeffrey Yin, Artsy's CEO, as the new leader of the combined companies. The merger involved layoffs across Artnet's editorial division including
Artnet News, as well as the formal closure of the company's Berlin office and German business entity. == Digital publications ==