The new Hiscox Artists Top 100 report, which focuses on trends in the auction market for works produced after 2000, found that Yayoi Kusama’s works generated the most auction value in 2023. Kusama’s artwork garnered $80.9 million at auctions in 2023, followed by David Hockney’s $50.3 million and Yoshitomo Nara’s $36 million. Hockney topped the list in 2022.
The Hiscox report also digs into the state of women artists’ works being sold at auction. While the report finds a 179% surge in the past five years in terms of the number of women artists whose works go to auction, in 2023, there was a 21% increase in the number of women artists’ works sold year over year and 8% decrease in the sale value of this subset of the market. Despite this, the numbers show a greater resilience in the market for women artists compared to their male counterparts, whose works’ sales value experienced a decline of 20%.
The report also covered the market for works by artists under 45, which accounted for 39% of the auction market, around the same as 2022, and an increase from 2019, when that figure was 32%. Despite this, this category accounted for 21% of sales by value, which marked a decline from 2022, when it was 30%. “While the market for these young artists remained very active, the price of their works that were sold were lower,” the report states. The best-selling artist at auction under 45 last year was Nicolas Party, whose works generated $20.2 million in auction sales, followed by Matthew Wong’s $16.5 million and Jadé Fadojutimi’s $8.5 million.
