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The contemporary art market experienced a record-breaking year in 2013/14, smashing through the $2 billion mark for the first time, according to new figures released on Tuesday.

US artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died in 1988, Jeff Koons and Christopher Wool remain the market's biggest stars accounting for sales at auction of 339 million euros ($436 million), according to Artprice, a Paris-based organization which keeps the world's biggest database on the contemporary art market.

In the year from July 2013, sales of contemporary art at public auctions reached $2.046 billion dollars, up 40 percent on the previous year, Artprice's annual report said.

New industry figures have revealed that the international art market has grown by 17% to $7 billion in the first six months of 2014. The French company Artprice stated that art sold at the major auction houses have totalled $7.15 billion ($5.22 billion euros). This has increased from the $6.11 billion figures crunched in the first half of 2013.

Thierry Ehrmann, from Artprice stated, "We have gone from 500,000 collectors in the post-war period to nearly 70 million 'art consumers' art lovers and collectors -- worldwide," he added; 2013 was a record year for art with sales worth $12.17 billion following a drop in 2012 linked to a contraction in the Chinese market. Ehrmann said museums and art centres, both public and private, were springing up all over the world, in particular in the Asia Pacific region and to a lesser extent in South America and the Middle East.