Speaking as a trained USPAP-compliant appraiser, I find that most artists have no idea how the art market really works. A recent flurry of irate posts on social media was launched by an artist who had been shocked to find a number of his/her pieces were being offered at auction for what seemed to be liquidation value—5-10% of their original gallery sale price. A public rant that went on for days that had no effect on the outcome, which the artist mistook for a personal slight. If you would be stunned to learn that an artworks sold at auction for 10-20% of its original gallery price might be a home run, you’re probably one of the clueless. Here’s the thing.
No public record of gallery sales exists. What do exist are auction results, now searchable online. Before the Internet, dealers and collectors would have to pour through auction records housed in places like The Frick Library in New York. Today one can conduct research online databases, such as ArtArt.com, MutualArt.com, ArtPrice.com, etc.
Auction-houses base their price-spread estimates and opening bids on an artist’s past performance at auction. Gallery price and private sales play no role in this practice. As far as auction-houses are concerned, what happens in galleries may as well be taking place in another galaxy. One has no direct bearing on the other
If you’re an artist who wants to protect your alleged price-point, don’t buy your old work. Instead leave an absentee bid at the opening bid—just to make sure the piece is not “passed.” Bidders are inclined to regard “buy-ins” as “burned.” Consignors might have to wait 3-5 years before bringing it back to auction.
>The market is in a huge sea-change. If Baby Boomers and their parents associated brown furniture, oriental carpets, and original artworks in gilded frames as the trappings of cultured affluence, younger buyers today are motivated to invest in experiences, more than in possessions. In ironic twist, the marketplace has downgraded the experiential value of art, by foregrounding its value as a fashionable investment. Nobody knows what will come first; the collapse of the art market, or a return to 20th-century materialism.
Galleries are disappearing; mostly because the cost of selling art has gone through the roof. Art fairs proliferate, with usurious exhibitor fees, along with a dizzying array of schemes and gimmicks, from popup events, NFTs, and online sales. How can young artists navigate this zany bourse of bling? How might a senior artist preserve some kind of legacy?
IMHO hoarding old work is just postponing a trip to the landfill. Do whatever you can to get it in play—sell it, or give it away if you can’t sell it. An artist recently approached me about gifting artworks to museums. He was stunned to learn that museums are even more selective than galleries, and they often require care-and-feeding cash subventions to accompany accepted gifts
Coming this fall will be a series of online conversations on topics related to artist legacies; an area where I possess some expertise. To receive notifications of talks, webinars, and workshops, become a free subscriber to my Substack column True Places. Transcripts of these programs and other written content will be available to paid subscribers.
>Thanks for reading
>—James L. McElhinney (c) 2024