ART AUCTION INFORMATION

Art Auction Data Bank: Auction Prices by artprice.com

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The market segments: fine art categories and prices

If you think art prices are prohibitive, think again! Half of all artworks are auctioned at below EUR 1,000. Top hammer prices and other exceptional works auctioned over EUR 100,000 account for only 1.5% of auctioned lots! 15% of works sold are multiples or lithographs and rarely sell for more than EUR 1,500.

Large-scale paintings and other rare and expensive paintings are still exceptions on the market. Auctions fetching over EUR 1 million are rare on the British-American markets and almost unheard of in other cities that hold auctions. Barely one in a thousand works reach this level, but when one does, it is usually at one of the most prestigious auctions during the art market's high season. Few artists reach the EUR 1 million mark nowadays and in fact only 437 artists have achieved this in the last 10 years.
This means the art market is accessible to all pockets and is a vital fallback when the Paris and New York stock markets are in a slump.

In the case of paintings, the more expensive the work, the greater the chance of making a profit upon resale. The greatest profits are to be had on paintings purchased for more than EUR100,000-paintings in this category have gained more than 12% in value each year since 1996. But in the case of works bought for less than EUR1,000, expectations of gains tend to be met only with losses. Owners of artworks bought at this kind of price risk seeing the value of their investment shrink by 6.4% each year. We should of course mention that there are few paintings by old masters or famous artists in this price bracket. In short, the return on investment depends on the artist's reputation: essentially it is the fame of the artist that determines the value of a work of art. Investing in a painting by a little known, or even unknown, artist is far more risky than investing in a work by an artist whose place in the history of art is already secure. Thus, it is those art collectors whose average budget exceeds EUR100,000 that are benefiting most from the rising price of paintings.

An unusual and unique rule applies to the prints market: the rarer a work, the more expensive it is, but the less profitable. This situation makes the prints and lithographs segment of the art market the ideal place for investing sums of less than EUR1,000. Portfolios of prints brought for less than EUR1,000 have accumulated average annual gains of 16.5% since 1996. This is an exceptional rise for artworks in this category and reflects increasingly fierce demand, plus the opening up of the art market to embrace a far broader slice of the public at large. 71% of prints in fact carry a price tag of less than EUR1,000. And with prices at these levels, art enthusiasts can acquire very attractive works by well-known artists without breaking the bank.

But unlike originals, where the gains tend to be greater the higher the price tag, profits are not generally made on prints bought at prices above EUR15,000 - 18,000. This is because, when prices rise above these levels, buyers' personal preferences and tastes start to come into play and paintings offered to the market at such prices often bear the signature of a famous artist. And when more than EUR100,000 is invested in a print, the risk of losing money is considerable, since the sale of a print tends to generate far less interest than the sale of a original.

excerpt from: Art Market Trends 2003
© 2004 artprice.com

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