This analysis of Artprice's list of top Contemporary artists is available to AMMpro subscribers. Monthly subscribers receive the first month free. Feel free to subscribe to the monthly membership and cancel before you are billed.
Artprice has published its Contemporary art market report—formerly timed to coincide with Frieze's later dates—which draws from an idiosyncratic definition of Contemporary art. For Artprice, only artists born after 1945 are eligible to be considered Contemporary. That causes some interesting disjunctures from the rest of the Contemporary art market.
Gone from their lists are market driving names like Warhol, Richter, Calder, Stella, Johns and Twombly.
Luckily for us, one of those names, Jean-Michel Basquiat, happens to be providing market leadership today. Above is a slightly redacted list drawn from Artprice's top twenty contemporary artists by gross auction sales. Further down, we give you the top twenty artists by lot volume, which is a very different list, and then the top twenty by average lot value. That final chart is drawn from Artprice's data but not something they calculate.
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