‘Mind-blowing’: Why do men’s paintings cost 10 times more than women’s?

August 4, 2022 7:58 AM

For every £1 fetched by a male artist’s work, one by a woman gets a mere 10p – and its value plummets further if she signs it. The creator of Recalculating Art, a shocking new radio exposé, reveals her findings
posted by Etrigan (16 comments total)

"as if it has somehow been tainted by her gender."

Literally everything about a woman has been tainted by her gender.

I'm so sick of the hatred for women just because they exist in the world. Of course they're worthless. Of course a signature by a woman (proving that she's a woman, and exists?) makes it even worse. Of course it does.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:48 AM on August 4, 2022 [28 favorites]

everything women do is undervalued and everything women need is overpriced. no surprise here, just the usual anger...
posted by supermedusa at 9:04 AM on August 4, 2022 [23 favorites]

From source:

Even though prices for work by female artists are starting from a far lower base, they are currently rising 29% faster than for art by men. For canny investors who want a bargain and a higher return, it’s a no-brainer.

Careful, people might start getting the idea that the art market isn't actually about the art in the first place. :P
posted by Aleyn at 9:44 AM on August 4, 2022 [18 favorites]

I'm gonna use this tonight in the anti-gender-based violence group I facilitate, because a lot of the attendees don't think men have more power and privilege than women.

Then she showed a sample of affluent men who visit galleries – the classic profile of an art collector – a painting created by AI, and randomly assigned it either a male or female artist’s name. If the collectors were told it was painted by a man they said they liked it more than if they were told it was painted by a woman. As she puts it: “The same artist, the same painting.”

Reminds me of this previously, about bias in Hubble Telescope research
posted by Gorgik at 9:47 AM on August 4, 2022 [18 favorites]

sorry, what the actual fuck? feminism hasn't gone anywhere, and fighting for civil rights for trans people doesn't water it down. i must have missed the part of the article that made any of liminal_shadows' comment relevant or... make sense.
posted by prefpara at 9:49 AM on August 4, 2022 [11 favorites]

yeah...liminal_shadows, your comment is going to bring down a rain of trouble here...I don't have the spoons to engage right now, but no, just no.
posted by supermedusa at 9:51 AM on August 4, 2022 [3 favorites]

Mod note: One comment deleted for violating the Guidelines. The fight for one group's rights is never "at the expense" of another group's. Implying this is not acceptable, this is a Trans-Inclusive space. Period.
posted by loup (staff) at 10:14 AM on August 4, 2022 [48 favorites]

When I was an art major in college in the mid 1980s I did a little research into MFA programs. At that time, the proportion of students in BFA programs was approximately 60% AFAB. Yet the students in MFA programs were only 30% AFAB or it might have even been lower. Gosh. What could have happened that all those women just didn't end up in graduate programs? It must have been that they didn't want to continue. Terrible how so few of them were talented enough to be admitted to those very competitive programs, which were, of course, completely gender blind. /sarcasm

That was more than thirty goddamn years ago and we still need the Guerrilla Girls. I'm really tired.
posted by mygothlaundry at 11:40 AM on August 4, 2022 [16 favorites]

It's a man's world, for a long time, like since before the Rennaissence, men were the models used, to paint women from. Somewhere then real women modeled, that might be part of the significance of The Mona Lisa. Women were sequestered, away from the artist's workshops, because of the blatant pedophilia, women were sheltered from. Read up on Caravaggio and his apprentices.

Step into the next centuries, the society of galleries and dealers enjoy the company of young male artists, and those entities, set the prices for art. Then the comingling of genders start, and at the art school I attended, virtually every daytime prof, was male, and they, with one exception, married their female students. Sex and art, sexual identity and art, gender bias in the pricing of art, it is what it still is.

Women are getting latter day recognition for their greatness, but the money is for the Hockneys, the Warhols, the Basquiats, (extra points for studio nudity.) Only in the last two years have the boys fessed up, about Joni Mitchell's greatness.

I have art degrees, I have studied the history, and the enormous unwritten history, of how art came to be the gender biased thing it is. Disdain for the efforts of women is called misogyny. It is rarely turned around to describe what they like, instead of an artistic society peopled by both talented women and men who are equally welcome in the scene, and equally paid. It will be a long time before the numbers rise for women artists.
posted by Oyéah at 11:51 AM on August 4, 2022 [5 favorites]

Great post, but do we really need to ask why? We all know why.

Very glad to see these things brought out of the shadows of “just the way it is,” “meritocracy” and all that other BS. The times are changing because we are changing them.
posted by rpfields at 12:54 PM on August 4, 2022 [7 favorites]

I imagine that of that $450m Salvador Dali painting and the $44m Georgia O’Keefe (and most other artists) that neither creator saw a single red-hot cent from those sales. While women painters might benefit from more equality and society might benefit from exposure to other viewpoints, we can’t ignore the fact that the only people making significant money are just investors and collectors, who otherwise add nothing of value. They are tastemaking parasites.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 2:01 PM on August 4, 2022 [19 favorites]

Maude Lebowski: Does the female form make you uncomfortable, Mr. Lebowski?

The Dude: Uh, is that what this is a picture of?

Maude Lebowski: In a sense, yes. My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:31 PM on August 4, 2022 [6 favorites]

I imagine that of that $450m Salvador Dali painting and the $44m Georgia O’Keefe (and most other artists) that neither creator saw a single red-hot cent from those sales. While women painters might benefit from more equality and society might benefit from exposure to other viewpoints, we can’t ignore the fact that the only people making significant money are just investors and collectors, who otherwise add nothing of value. They are tastemaking parasites.

That's true of those specific sales, sure, but both Dali and O'Keeffe happen to be among the very few artists who made huge amounts of money from their work during their lifetime.
posted by kickingtheground at 6:05 PM on August 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

There are also plenty of people who are doing art as a living now, and many of them sell art that is affordable to a normal person (and if you like art you should buy it!). I would sadly assume this is true for them as well.
posted by sepviva at 6:58 PM on August 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

That is the kicker, buy art you like and that you can afford, support emerging artists. Hooray! Make some art!
posted by Oyéah at 8:15 PM on August 4, 2022

sidenote: I think you're referencing the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo Da Vinci.
posted by VyanSelei at 10:12 PM on August 4, 2022