DATABANK
American Exceptionalism
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Until recently American art—a category comprising Colonial 17th-century through prewar 20th-century modernist
paintings—was much like blue-chip stocks, performing reliably and steadily in terms of market size and price volatility.
Over the past 18 months, however, we have seen a very different picture, with a dramatic rise in sales and dollar volume
that is providing returns heretofore unseen in this category, mirroring the trend in contemporary art. Does this surge signify a
rediscovery of an underappreciated category, or is it a market bubble in the making? To analyze the phenomenon we drew
on a dataset of more than 150,000 sales records from 1970 to 2012 from 100-plus auction houses, selecting the top 500 artists
in terms of dollar volume. We based the following index on the 27,974 lots that contained their works. BY ROMAN KRAEUSSL
AMERICAN PAINTINGS INDEX WITH 1970–2012 SALES VOLUME
Over more than four decades, there have been only modest gains in the number of works sold
by the category’s top 500 artists, growing from some 500 works turned over annually in the
1970s to an average of 750 that changed hands in the mid-2000s. Moreover, the category’s
recovery has been lackluster immediately following the market correction of 2008—which saw
the index plummet from 642 in 2007 to 387 in 2009—lagging behind 19th-century European
paintings and postwar and contemporary art.
Index
Since the beginning of 2012, the market for
American art has taken off. Not only are sales up,
but the buy-in rate, shown semi-annually, is lower
than ever, having fallen below average. Meanwhile,
the index has more than doubled in the past 18
months, earning more than 60 percent per year.
Volume
800
Index
1200
700
1000
600
152
INDEX WITH BUY-IN RATE
800
500
800
Buy-in Rate
250
60%
50%
200
40%
150
600
300
400
200
200
100
0
30%
100
0
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
20%
50
10%
0%
0
2010
2007
2010
2013
THEN AND NOW: TOP 10 ARTISTS MEASURED BY DOLLAR SALES
Albert Bierstadt, Childe Hassam, Georgia O’Keeffe, and John Singer Sargent are the only artists to appear on both lists, reflecting a shift in taste over the
decades, with illustrators such as Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish joining the club. It is important to note that the average price per work traded
varies, with one by Frederic Edwin Church commanding $172,500 in the 1970s, nearly three times that of Church’s closest rival, Frederic Remington. In the
current market, the average price for an Edward Hopper is $7.8 million, more than three times that of the next artist in line, Andrew Wyeth.
TOP 10 AMERICAN PAINTERS, 1970–79
TOP 10 AMERICAN PAINTERS, 2003–12
RANK
ARTIST
TURNOVER
NO. OF SALES
RANK
ARTIST
TURNOVER
NO. OF SALES
1
Frederic Edwin Church
$3,278,131
19
1
Norman Rockwell
$73,303,055
112
2
Thomas Moran
$1,755,899
61
2
John Singer Sargent
$61,358,749
44
3
John Singer Sargent
$1,532,561
59
3
Childe Hassam
$58,302,973
123
4
Mary Stevenson Cassatt
$1,433,056
36
4
Albert Bierstadt
$48,212,060
213
5
Childe Hassam
$1,248,977
50
5
Thomas Moran
$44,701,174
86
6
Frederic Remington
$1,125,192
18
6
Georgia O’Keeffe
$44,610,000
41
7
Albert Bierstadt
$1,113,328
121
7
Marsden Hartley
$41,396,487
82
8
Georgia O’Keeffe
$939,500
25
8
Edward Hopper
$39,200,000
5
9
George Inness
$844,017
86
9
Andrew Wyeth
$36,085,000
16
10
Jasper Francis Cropsey
$564,221
76
10
Maxfield Parrish
$35,964,955
59
$13,834,882
551
Total
$483,134,453
781
Total
ART+AUCTION SEPTEMBER 2013
| BLOUINARTINFO.COM
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: CHRISTIE’S; SOTHEBY’S; BONHAMS
Norman Rockwell has led American sales in dollar volume, with
112 works changing hands, since 2003. His Starstruck, 1934, left,
sold for $2,027,750 at Christie’s in May. Works by Georgia
O’Keeffe, such as Autumn Leaf II, 1927, above, which sold for
$4.3 million at Sotheby’s in 2012, have remained favorites since
the 1970s. Albert Bierstadt’s Early Snow in Yosemite Valley,
Sentinel Rock, below, sold for $338,500 at Bonhams this spring.
BLOUINARTINFO.COM
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SEPTEMBER 2013 ART+AUCTION
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