Top Ten Big-Buck Artists of 2006
It’s good to be king.
The numbers are pretty staggering. Artprice.com has compiled a list of the top-selling artists of last year. To give you an idea of just how torrentially money rained into the art market in 2006, the total for the top ten artists alone was $1.2 billion, up from $576 million just two years earlier.
But these numbers don’t tell the full story, as they were calculated using auction sales only. If private sales reports are to be believed, and had they been included, Klimt and de Kooning would’ve earned far more—and been more highly ranked—since each had a single-painting sale that topped $130 million.
So…..what? No Monet? No Renoir? No Rembrandt? With top-flight Impressionists and Old Masters largely embalmed in museums and venerable private collections, the market has shifted its focus to twentieth-century artists. Interestingly, the top two artists on the list, Picasso and Warhol, were among the most prolific in history. Who needs rarity when you’ve got brand power backed by beaucoup de inventory?
1- Pablo PICASSO: $ 339,245,929
2 - Andy WARHOL : $ 199,392,442
3 - Gustav KLIMT :$ 175,143,589
4 - Willem DE KOONING :$ 107,373,446
5 - Amedeo MODIGLIANI : $ 90,713,845
6 - Marc CHAGALL : $ 89,038,897
7 - Egon SCHIELE : $ 79,081,455
8 - Paul GAUGUIN : $ 62,312,914
9 - Henri MATISSE : $ 59,723,249
10 - Roy LICHTENSTEIN : $ 59,670,946
