Cenk Üsel

Finance professional and art market analyst. MBA Candidate, University of Aberdeen. Founder of Collector's Arch, London, UK.

University of Aberdeen · University of Manchester · Sotheby's Institute of Art · Istanbul Bilgi University · ArtTactic · Frieze London · Saatchi Yates

About

Cenk Üsel is a finance professional with experience in corporate finance, credit analysis, liquidity planning, and bank relations, including evaluation of USD 5M+ credit facilities within a high-turnover corporate environment. He holds an MA in Contemporary Art with a specialisation in Art Finance and Market Analysis from Sotheby's Institute of Art, awarded by the University of Manchester, and a BA in Economics from Istanbul Bilgi University. He is currently completing an MBA at the University of Aberdeen. His London art market experience spans ArtTactic, Saatchi Yates Gallery, Frieze London, Eye of the Collector, and London Original Print Fair. He is the founder of Collector's Arch, an independent art market intelligence platform producing evidence-based career trajectory reports on emerging artists.

CV & Background

Selected Writing

A selection of essays on contemporary art, market dynamics, and emerging artist valuation.

The Winners & Losers Behind New York’s May Sales

Modern & Contemporary May 2026 New York auctions did not prove that the art market had become healthy again; they proved that investments have become more selective. Across Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips, the season produced roughly £1.56 billion in evening-sale turnover and about £1.86 billion including day sales, but the real story was a split between trophy liquidity and a much thinner market for contemporary art of emerging artists. Trophy Names, Uneven Demand The win

May 283 min read

The Emerging Art Market Position of Tja Ling Hu

Artist Tja Ling Hu’s work look increasingly mispriced relative to the depth of her contemporary artistic profile. Born in 1987, the Dutch Chinese contemporary artist builds her practice around memory, diaspora and intergenerational identity; official artist and museum biographies consistently return to her family’s migration history from China to the Netherlands as a foundational narrative. That grounding matters, because Hu is not producing decorative figuration alone. She i

May 103 min read

Following Titian Through the Deeper Currents of the Art Market

Reading Charles FitzRoy’s “The Rape of Europa” sharpens a familiar but still under-discussed truth: major collections are rarely formed by taste alone; they are consolidated by geopolitical power and art market progress. Titian’s The Rape of Europa , painted in Venice around 1559–62 for Philip II of Spain as part of the poesie cycle, is not just a masterpiece of movement, sensuality and danger. Its later passage through French aristocratic hands, an English private collecti

Mar 313 min read