Art market: how to know the rating of an artist?

Art Market: How to Know an Artist's Market Value?

Knowing an artist's market value is essential for collectors, art dealers, and even the artists themselves. An artist's market value represents the worth of their works in the art market and can significantly influence buying and selling decisions. Here’s how to evaluate an artist's market value accurately and informatively.

1. Analyze Auction Sales
Auction sales are a valuable source of information for determining an artist's market value. Auction houses like Christie's, Sotheby's, and Artcurial publish the results of their sales, including the prices achieved by the artworks. This data provides a concrete insight into the market value of an artist's creations.

Consult Auction Catalogs: Auction catalogs include pre-sale estimates and post-sale results, providing a reference point for an artist's market value.
Use Online Databases: Websites like Artprice, Artnet, and Auction.fr compile auction results and allow tracking the price evolution of an artist’s works over several years.

2. Explore Galleries and Art Fairs
Art galleries and fairs are important platforms for observing market trends and an artist's popularity. Prices displayed in galleries and sales made during art fairs offer additional indications of an artist's market value.

Visit Renowned Galleries: Galleries representing established or emerging artists set prices based on their expertise and market knowledge.
Attend Art Fairs: Fairs like Art Basel, FIAC, and the Venice Biennale are key events where works are often sold at prices reflecting their current market value.

3. Consult Art Critiques and Specialized Publications
Art critiques, specialized magazines, and catalogues raisonnés are excellent sources for understanding an artist's critical and institutional recognition. An artist well-covered by the media and specialized publications generally has a higher market value.

Read Art Journals: Publications like Artforum, Artsy, and Le Journal des Arts offer critiques, interviews, and market analyses that can shed light on an artist's market value.
Search for Catalogues Raisonnés: These works, often created by experts or institutions, list an artist’s complete works and provide detailed information about their value.

4. Use Online Tools
Numerous online tools are available to help evaluate an artist's market value. These platforms aggregate sales data, market analyses, and trends to offer a comprehensive assessment of an artist's value.

Artprice: This database provides detailed information on auction results and market trends.
Artnet: In addition to auction sales data, Artnet offers market analyses and trend reports.
Saatchi Art: For emerging artists, Saatchi Art provides sales prices based on transactions made on its platform.

5. Evaluate Institutional Presence
Institutional recognition plays a crucial role in determining an artist's market value. Exhibitions in renowned museums, public collections, and artistic awards greatly influence the perception of an artist’s value.

Check Museum Exhibitions: Artists exhibited in renowned museums often enjoy higher market values.
Verify Public Collections: Works in public collections or acquired by prestigious institutions are indicators of value.
Follow Awards and Distinctions: Art awards like the Turner Prize or the Marcel Duchamp Prize increase an artist’s visibility and value.

Conclusion
Knowing an artist's market value requires a thorough analysis of auction sales, gallery prices, art critiques, online tools, and institutional recognition. By combining these different sources of information, it is possible to obtain an accurate evaluation of an artist’s value in the art market. Whether you are a collector, dealer, or artist, understanding the market value is crucial for effectively navigating the art world.

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Before buying, you need to know the value of the artists or objects you are interested in. It will help you determine your price on auction day. In practice, there are many sources of information.

For drawings, paintings, sculptures and regular market studies, the artprice.com website is absolutely indispensable.
By paying a minimum subscription of 148 euros per year, it gives you all the sales results of the artist of your choice. If you want to go further and have information on all sales in the world and access biographies of artists, the subscription goes up to 178.20 euros.
Finally, it goes up to 268,20 euros and you will then have access to all the other data of Artprice like the indices and the updated prices of the works.

There is also a smartphone subscription of 99 euros to access the artists' rating. You can also subscribe to Arnet.fr. The annual subscription varies between 225 euros and 326 euros.

For furniture and art objects, research is more difficult. You can consult auction.fr or the website of the Gazette of the hotel Drouot, provided you subscribe for 105 euros per year.
If you content yourself with Gazette which also comments on the results of many sales, it will cost you 100 euros.

Also note that most sales companies have their own site on which they publish the results of their different vacations. This is the case of Sotheby's, Christie's, Artcurial, Piasa, Tajan, Pierre Bergé, Millon ...
Of course, you should know that the chest of drawers you were looking for was sold by one of these houses. This forces you to have the Gazette.

Finally, many dictionaries publish results every year. Among the best known are ArtPrice Annual, a paper version of the website, the Guidargus of painting or furniture, or the Valentine's argus, which cover the most diverse domains (sculptures, silverware, ceramics, paintings, archeology, etc.).