Art World Statistics Every Artist Needs to Know

Pursuing a career as an artist, navigating the art world, and opting for alternative career strategies takes courage, persistence, but also knowledge if we aim to be successful. Empirical evidence from in-field experience and statistical evidence by crunching some art world numbers are required to understand the reality artists face. Therefore, throughout this article, we’ll discuss statistical truths every artist should know to understand the circumstances to pursue career growth.

The numbers result from various studies encompassing the yearly Art Market Report from UBS and Art Basel, the Artsy Collectors Report, the paper Quantifying Reputation and Success in Art, or the ArtFacts database mapping the art world. Dear artists, brace yourselves for the truth and nothing but the truth. At the end of the article, there is a silver lining, so no matter how hard it is to face reality, let’s face it together bravely and be hopeful and motivated for what the future might bring us.

Why The Art World Is Oversaturated with Art

Art is—most often—a lasting product. Therefore, it can occupy a collector’s wall for the entire lifespan of the collector, and of the next owner, the next owner, and so on. Considering the ridiculous amount of art being created today, one can only conclude that there is too much art out there, so the bulk of the pieces created by artists across the globe will remain unsold.

Artists create approximately 25 to 50 artworks annually. With an estimated 5 million active artists today, this results in 125 to 250 million new artworks per year.

Now, let us look at the number of collectors, encompassing one-time passion buyers, private collectors, institutions, and corporate investors. How much can the collecting individuals of the art world and beyond absorb from this enormous production of art?

Whereas all artists produce several works yearly, 99% of all collectors are one-time buyers. The 5 million active artists are competing for these one-time buyers, and in particular, the recurring collectors. However, studies have shown that only 6,000 significant art collectors spend more than $100,000 per year in value by collecting art. 83% of all collectors are in the US and Europe. 

These numbers naturally result in the bulk of the art remaining unseen and unsold in the artist’s studio. This is not the fault of the artist, the collectors, or the art world. The reality is that there are significantly more people interested in creating art than there are people interested in collecting art.

Why It Is Difficult for Artists To Enter the Art World

The art world is often seen as an amalgam of pretentious entities that look down on artists outside the art world and aim to do everything to protect those inside the art world. However, as with the artist-collector ratio, the artist-exhibition ratio is not that great either, as we delve into the amount of exhibition opportunities per year, or the amount of exhibition-oriented entities—galleries and museums in particular—to show our work.

Only 1 in 5 artists will exhibit their work in their lifetime, with just shy of 1 million active exhibiting artists in today’s art world. With 25,000 galleries and 7,500 museum institutions, 5 million artists are competing to be showcased in one of the 70,000 exhibitions per year.

So, galleries aren’t responding to your submissions by mail or solicitations when walking into the gallery space because they do not want to support new, local, or beginner artists; it is simply because they cannot support or exhibit everyone. Otherwise, to showcase all artists, every single art gallery would have to organize a new exhibition every day and a half—which is, of course, not feasible. Especially when considering the costs connected to representing an artist and the reality discussed earlier that, in the end, most of the artwork will remain unsold because there is too much offer and not enough demand—or too many artists for the number of collectors.

Most galleries are based in the United States of America (34%), followed by Germany (12%) and the United Kingdom (10%). Most galleries in a single city are in New York (6%), London (5%), Berlin (4%), Paris (3%), and Los Angeles (3%).

It is clear to say that the destiny of art galleries is strongly intertwined with the presence of collectors. Artists and galleries are somewhat in the same boat here, as they need to understand what the market wants in terms of artistic disciplines and where the collectors are located. This brings us to the financial realities that art galleries also have to adapt to.

Why Art Galleries Are So Selective in Representing Artists

It is a common misconception that galleries are money-grubbing entities that do not care about art and only care about money. However, the numbers indicate that the contemporary art industry is the least profitable, with great costs, risks, and limited rewards. Especially, the smaller art galleries are struggling, run by gallery directors putting their own money on the table to create their artistic universe of the artists they love and aim to promote. We actually notice a negative tendency in the turnover of those galleries, whereas the bigger galleries are solidifying their presence financially.

30% of all art galleries are losing money instead of making money, with only 18% making a healthy profit margin of over 20%. Almost 80% of all art galleries make less than $200,000 annually.

As a result, it makes sense that art galleries are focusing on finding a balance between representing and exhibiting new artists in combination with a selection of more established artists with a steady selling history. Ultimately, it is not the galleries acting as gatekeepers—another common misconception—but some artists are being exhibited more frequently than others simply because there is a greater demand from the collectors. In the end, the market—meaning the people—decides. And yes, the institutions and galleries can influence this demand, but in the early days of the career of artists, it is predominantly the market that is influencing the amount of exhibitions an artist gets. This is confirmed by the numbers once more.

45% of the total value of sales at smaller art galleries comes from just one artist. At bigger galleries, this number is 30%.

In short, one artist subsidizes the exhibitions of the other artists. So, to support new artists, the gallery needs to secure income by representing some of the more established artists. So do not feel frustrated when seeing some artists getting a lot of shows as if they are being favored, and do not be too hard on yourself when you have your first few shows and the sales are rather underwhelming. This brings us to our final set of numbers for this article, the financial reality for artists.

Why (Some) Artists Are Not Starving

When analyzing the financial reality of artists in our extensive article and study on how much money artists actually make, the numbers were both disconcerting and motivating. Despite the incredible amount of artists making even more artworks year in and year out and the fact that there are so few collectors of which whom most buy only once in their lifetime, resulting in a small pool of active art galleries and exhibiting opportunities for artists, these are the numbers in terms of income for artists.

1 in 6 artists makes more than $25,000 annually. 1 in 10 artists makes more than $100,000.

Yes, this also means that 85% make less than $25,000 annually. However, after reviewing the above statistics, these odds are a lot better than the public perception that pursuing an art career is like playing the lottery. When you’re outside of the art world, it might seem unthinkable that you can make a living from being an artist. Still, when you have a look on the inside, you’ll notice that numerous artists are practicing their dream jobs thanks to the passionate collectors, galleries, various initiatives (grants, residencies, awards), and institutions investing in creative people.

Therefore, don’t be frustrated or envious of the art world. Be aware that success is not their fault or yours and that success is not easy. Be aware of these numbers and put everything into perspective. Realize that a decent work-life-art balance is required to pursue this dream job and that great investments are being made to support your efforts. And with the right advice, approach, and mindset, we can beat these odds.

For more information and advice on how to do this, feel free to explore our industry-approved career advice for artists here.

Last Updated on April 1, 2024