This report on the Roy Lichtenstein market using data provided by Pi-eX is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)
No artist is more closely associated with Pop art than Roy Lichtenstein, the painter who helped to usher in post-modernism by elevating mass-culture comic strips into high art. Despite his unquestionable historical importance and broad recognition beyond art collectors and museums, Lichtenstein’s market has somewhat lagged even as the art market exploded over the last two decades. His prolific peer Andy Warhol played a central role in the growth of Contemporary art prices that Lichtenstein had not, that is, until relatively recently. From there it has been a slow burn but still a bright one.
In 2012, the Art Institute of Chicago and Tate London collaborated on a retrospective that brought the artist new attention. In response, auction results rose. A report published by London-based Pi-eX analyzed Lichtenstein’s 2007 to 2019 sales from the evening auctions at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips. (For clarity, Pi-eX uses hammer prices, not prices with the buyer’s premium added. Consequently, all prices in this report will be based upon the hammer prices.) Pi-eX found the highest number works (between 25 and 30) traded in 2013, the year following the Lichtenstein survey. The evening sale lots generated $80 million in sales with another $60.5 million taking place throughout the year, according to public auction records.Continue Reading
