Working Without the Pressure of Success

Fast forward to 2025, and institutions are still working to diversify their collections, curators are foregrounding women artists, and academic revisions to art history aim to spotlight overlooked women artists. Yet, in the commercial art market, female artists are still operating in the shadow of their male peers.

Despite growing recognition, the numbers show that female artists remain undervalued, underrepresented, and under-collected.

The Data Is Unambiguous:

1. In 2022, female artists accounted for just 9.3% of total auction sales.
2. Among the top 1,000 artist auction records set that year, only 229 belonged to women.
3. Since 2008, Pablo Picasso’s auction sales alone have totalled $6.23 billion - exceeding the combined total for all female artists, which stands at $6.2 billion. This staggering gap is fuelled not just by historical biases but by entrenched collector habits, investment patterns, and a system that consistently prioritises male artists as financial assets, reinforcing their dominance in both primary and secondary markets.

While these figures are sobering, they are not surprising. The art market - unlike museums, galleries, or academic institutions - operates with minimal oversight. It is driven by collectors, dealers, and institutions whose buying patterns often reinforce the status quo.

When an artist’s market is already strong, auction houses set higher estimates, which in turn bolster collector confidence and drive competitive bidding. This cycle reinforces the value of established names while leaving emerging or historically undervalued artists struggling to gain traction. When an artist’s market is fragile, it remains that way until confidence restores. In a world where 91% of high-value auction sales still go to men, the system continues to self-perpetuate.

1. The Language of Value: The way female artists are discussed differs starkly from their male counterparts. Men’s art is often framed in terms of power, innovation, and commercial success, while women’s art is described as “personal,” “confessional,” or “intimate.” These descriptors shape collector perception and, ultimately, market value. Damien Hirst is praised as a “market disruptor,” while Tracey Emin’s deeply personal work is rarely framed in terms of commercial strength.
2. Market Momentum and Scarcity: Female artists often have fewer works in circulation due to historical exclusion from institutional support. This impacts liquidity and price momentum - fewer works lead to fewer high-value resales, keeping price ceilings lower. Kusama’s commercial dominance is an exception, but even her market remains heavily concentrated in Asia, while Western collectors have been slower to embrace her at the same level.
3. Investment Bias: The blue-chip art market is controlled by a small number of powerful collectors and investors, most of whom have historically favoured male artists. These collectors set the benchmarks for what is considered valuable. Even when museums acquire female artists’ works, their market prices do not appreciate as quickly as those of their male peers.

The share of works by women in high-net-worth collectors’ holdings has reached a seven-year high of 44%, suggesting that change is coming. Emerging artists like Julie Mehretu, Kara Walker, and Loie Hollowell are gaining traction, and continued institutional support is driving collector interest. However, structural challenges remain.

While pricing structures are never going to change overnight, the work to spotlight these female trailblazers must extend to evaluating their place in the contemporary art market. Until then, the system will keep female artists in a space where their success is celebrated, but not always reflected in financial terms.

The market must move beyond the idea that female artists “lag” behind due to artistic merit. Instead, it must reckon with the historical and systemic forces that have shaped these imbalances - and take active steps to correct them.